Still harbouring immense guilt from being the last person to see his younger brother Hinata prior to his disappearance 13 years ago, Keita (Sugita Rairu) leads a quiet life working in a supermarket and keeping himself to himself. He lives with his amiable school teacher roommate Tsukaka (Amon Hirai) who has issues of his own – namely his second sight, although he seems oddly serene about his ability to see ghosts. The pair’s companionable, easy-going lives are disrupted one day following two strange events: first, Keita finds a missing boy in a nearby forest, and then he receives a parcel from his estranged mother which contains a VHS tape he recorded as a child.

It is this tape that gives Kondo Ryota’s feature debut its title, as the footage shows the moment Hinata disappeared on Mount Mushiro, inside an abandoned building while playing hide and seek with Keita. The footage is suitably ominous in its simplicity; there are no jumpscares, or even anything overtly shocking. Instead, there’s just a pervasive feeling of dread as the young Keita becomes increasingly frantic when he cannot find his little brother. Angry with his mother for sending him the tape all these years later, Keita resolves to confront her.

Meanwhile, Mikoko (Sō Morita), a dogged cub reporter, is looking for Keita, having made the connection between his brother’s disappearance and the child he found recently. But as Mikoko tries to get an interview with Keita, she uncovers more and more odd details about the place where Hinata disappeared and becomes obsessed with the story much to her editor’s chagrin.

Kondo Ryota studied under Hiroshi Takahashi whose providence within J-Horror is strong; perhaps the plot device of a VHS tape is a nod to his mentor, but unlike the tape of the Ring franchise, the curse of Keita’s old family video is metaphorical rather than physical. Yet the film is undoubtedly a ghost story, with Tsukaka nonchalant about his ability to see dead people, and Hinata’s presence (or lack thereof) looming large in Keita’s life. A slow-burn mystery unfolds, imbued with the same unsettling atmosphere of Keita’s videotape, uncomfortable in its simplicity.

It is a tantalisingly restrained film, particularly compared to the ghost stories that loom large in cinema. Similarly, Ryota refuses to hold the audience’s hand, opting for ambiguity that leaves us unsure if we can trust our own eyes, let alone the protagonist who seems so remorseful about his brother’s disappearance. As a debut feature, it is particularly auspicious, remarkable in its simplicity – our human desire to fill in the blanks means the narrative doesn’t end when the credits roll.

After a long career as a professor of French literature, Gisuke Watanabe (Nagatsuka Kyozo) is reasonably content to live out his retirement in relative peace. He writes a few magazine articles and occasionally gives guest lectures, but most of his time is dedicated to keeping an orderly house and cooking simple but hearty meals. Some of his old pupils stop by occasionally, helping with maintenance or keeping him company at dinner, but Gisuke leads a fairly solitary life – it’s been that way ever since his wife died some 20 years previous. But at 77, he knows the end is near. Having done the maths on when exactly his retirement fund will run out, he plans to go out on his own terms. His plan is as meticulous as the traditional house in which he lives. But then Gisuke receives a strange email.

The ‘Teki’ of Teki Cometh refers to a mysterious enemy Gisuke is anonymously warned of – it’s also the name of Yasutaka Tsutsui’s 1998 novel which provided filmmaker Daihachi Yoshida with his source material. Thought by the author to be a very difficult title to adapt for the screen, Yoshida gamely rose to the challenge, shooting in milky black and white to emphasise the austerity of Gisuke’s life as well as the lack of delineation within the film between fantasy and reality. What begins as an observational, austere drama about a lonely man in the twilight of his life slowly unfolds as something stranger and perhaps more sinister.

On the surface Teki Cometh may appear to be a story about the reality of growing old, and perhaps specifically about the fear of doing so alone – how our world is not set up sufficiently to provide care for the elderly, and what happens when that responsibility cannot be fulfilled by family. Yet both the director and author emphasise that Teki Cometh is not so much about dementia, but rather the active choice to indulge in one’s desires, dreams and fantasies, and the relationship we have with our own past as we age – a refreshing outlook for a film with a 77-year-old protagonist. This hinges on Nagatsuka Kyozo’s central performance, which is spellbinding and stoic. He positions Gisuke as charming and upstanding, but as the story progresses and the ‘enemy’ advances, all is not quite what it seems.

Set over a year and mostly within the confines of Gisuke’s traditional suburban home, repetition is key to emphasising the protagonist’s pride in his daily routine. Mouthwatering shots of food – complimented by sharp sound design and sparing use of a cello-heavy score – suggest a particular fussiness about Gisuke, and are all the more impressive for their lack of colour. Drawing inspiration from classic Japanese cinema with an emphasis on static wide shots, there’s a real richness to Gisuke’s environment, and the more time we spend by his side, the more shocking Yoshida’s twists and turns become. With a sly sense of humour and arresting visuals, Teki Cometh is an impressive adaptation and a poignant character study that defies easy definition.

Inspired by the ‘Route 29, Liberation’ poetry collection by Taichi Nakao, filmmaker Yusuke Morii took a month-long trip along the eponymous road that connects the cities of Himeji and Tottori in southwestern Japan. The result was a screenplay depicting two women making the same journey, albeit for vastly different reasons and with many obstacles along the way. The antisocial Noriko (Haruka Ayase) is a young cleaner recently diagnosed with a brain tumour, who answers the request of a psychiatric patient she meets at work to bring her 12-year-old daughter for a visit. Haru (Osawa Ichina) is the quirky, similarly isolated girl in question, who goes with Noriko without question, hopping into the orange van she stole from her employer and setting off on what is supposed to be a simple three-hour drive.

But there are a few flaws in Noriko’s plan – namely that she’s failed to get permission to pick up Haru, and after losing their ride to an eccentric car thief, they are forced to make the journey on foot. The snag brings them into contact with other oddballs travelling along the rural Route 29, as well as the lush forests that surround the long stretch of road, and eventually a face from Noriko’s past. It’s a lo-fi take on Paper Moon, replete with a charming performance from the young Osawa Ichina, trading Kansas and Missouri for the riverside tarmac of the Chūgoku region. The cinema of Wes Anderson might also be a source of inspiration – there are plenty of carefully composed wide shots and Morii’s emotionally inarticulate characters speak in offbeat rhythms.

Among the strangers Noriko and Haru meet during their journey are an unnamed father and son, who have abandoned society to live a simple life in the woods. They share their food with the travellers, reflecting on the anxieties which have led them into the forest; a similarly surreal encounter brings them to a near-silent elderly man who Haru nicknames ‘Gramps’. Such details could easily be dismissed as quirky flourishes, but there’s an earnestness that underwrites Route 29, teamed with Haru’s wide-eyed imagination and the mysterious nature of Noriko herself.

Although Morii’s film feels familiar in its conceit, the specifics are decidedly unique, and the remarkable performances of Ayase and Ichina anchor a story that might otherwise float away. It’s a meandering, lyrical road movie, strange and serene in its conceit and execution, and demonstrates a growing confidence as a filmmaker in Yusuke Morii.

Prolific Japanese screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara – best known for his association with the yakuza films of the 70s and 80s – first wrote the script for 11 Rebels some 60 years ago, focusing on the Japanese Civil War of 1868-69 (The Boshin War) in which the military government were challenged by a coalition of forces siding with the emperor. It’s a period of Japanese history which has proven generally ripe for artistic interpretation, of which Edward Zwick’s The Last Samurai is likely to be most Westerners’ point of entry. Some 22 years after Kasahara’s death, Kazuya Shiraishi – himself a Japanese crime filmmaker – has inherited the 11 Rebels script, and brought the samurai story to life in suitably bloody fashion.

Yet it’s not the samurai who are the heart of this rousing action ensemble. Instead, it’s a “suicide squad” of 10 convicts, who are given the chance to earn their freedom by defending a local fort for the Shinbata samurai. Among their number are a mysterious elderly man, a female arsonist, a lecherous monk, a mass murderer, a card sharp, an aspiring doctor who tried to run away to Russia, and a man whose only crime was being “too handsome” (thereby leading to an affair with a samurai’s wife) but the focus of the action is Masa (Yamada Takayuki), a heavily tattooed labourer who was sentenced to death for murdering the samurai who raped his wife. There’s also the matter of Noro (Takara Sakumoto), who has an intellectual disability and claims to be Masa’s little brother despite Masa’s insistence they are not related. Noro idolises Masa, who has little time for him – he also has no interest in helping the Shinbata and only wishes to get back to his wife, leading to tensions between him and the rest of the group as it is revealed if one of them deserts, they will all be denied their pardon.

Backstory and character development are kept at a minimum, instead making way for plenty of fighting, explosions and gory special effects. The fight choreography is impressive if not a little repetitive, but the special effects team have really pulled out all the stops. Nary a swordfight goes by without someone losing a limb or having a few holes put in them, and the squib budget along for 11 Rebels must have been impressive. Shiraishi does seem keen to emphasise the brutality of war, which seems notable considering the common misconception of the Boshin War as a “bloodless revolution”. It’s certainly not for the faint of heart, but there’s an almost cartoonish level of gore at times, particularly once Noro’s affinity for creating explosives is discovered.

It’s unclear how much work – if any – Shiraishi did to modernise Kasahra’s script, but certainly some of it seems outdated. The treatment of Noro’s disability and the paltry roles given to the film’s few female characters are evidence that there was absolutely room for a fresh take on the samurai genre, and at times 11 Rebels does feel old-fashioned in its sensibilities. It could also deal with a swift chop in the edit suite too, rolling in at 2 and a half hours and struggling to keep up. Despite the thin characterisations of its motley crew and constant toing and froing between the fort and the local seat of power where much scheming is taking place, 11 Rebels does satisfy a certain appetite for destruction, ending on a pleasingly downer note which runs antithetical to any lingering myths about the honour of the samurai warrior.

The Tokyo International Film Festival opens its doors once more for its 37th edition, kicking off on 28 October with the world premiere of Kazuya Shiraishi’s action-packed jidaigeki period piece 11 Rebels, and closing 10 days later with Christophe Honoré’s spry, metatextual comedy, Marcello Mio.

The full line-up comprises 110 films, with the legendary Hong Kong actor Tony Leung serving as the president of the International Competition Jury. The competition strand is made up of fifteen titles, and includes world premieres of Yang Lina’s Big World, Philip Yung’s Papa, Sergio Graciano’s The Englishman’s Papers.

Throughout the rest of the programme, the Asian Future strand highlights 10 world premieres from emerging filmmakers across the much wider Asian region: from Turkey, Iran, Malaysia, Afghanistan and China. It also boasts the new addition of a Women’s Empowerment strand, with nine films by female filmmakers including Eva Trobisch’s Ivo, Maryam Moghadam, Behtash Sanaeeha’s My Favourite Cake and Tamura Naoki’s Doctor-X the Movie.

Other key sections are animation – which includes Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot, Kuno Yoko and Yamashita Nobuhiro’s Ghost Cat Anzu, Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail and a 4K restoration of Masuda Toshio’s 1977 Space Battleship Yamato – and Nippon Cinema Now, focusing on emerging trends in Japanese cinema across 12 titles.

Elsewhere across the festival, there are gala screenings of Audrey Diwan’s Emmanuelle, Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch and Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, and audiences will be able to attend masterclasses with the likes of Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Sammo Hung, as well as a symposium on the work of retired Hungarian maestro, Béla Tarr. LWLies will be on the ground and reporting from this major celebration of cinema, so keep an eye on our channels for updates

The 37th Tokyo International Film Festival runs from 28 October to 6 November in the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Marunouchi-Ginza area.

Tokyo International Film Festival currently isn’t a name that comes to mind when thinking of the major global cinema events. Europe and North America leave Asian festivals feeling like small-change affairs by comparison, often ignored in the minds of all but the local residents with access to the films being showcased. It’s a shame, since such events typically highlight local cinema beyond a mere regurgitation of the Cannes and festival favorites for any given year, offering them a unique flair.

The Tokyo Film Festival has been undergoing a series of reforms aimed at uplifting its status and prestige within the festival circuit since COVID shifted the goalposts. A new base of operations in flashy Ginza, a new programming director looking to uplift the standard of films, alongside becoming the first Asian festival to sign the pledge for gender parity, are a signal of intent: this isn’t just Japan’s premiere film festival, but one the world should pay attention to.

Does its lineup deliver these lofty goals? Well, on the gender parity point it failed badly – just three of the 15 competition films were directed by women. In terms of quality it’s a step in the right direction, with a slate of unique world premieres that showcase the value of regional festivals highlighting local cinema on a world stage.

It was still the critically-acclaimed films from Cannes (Out of Competition film The Beasts from director Rodrigo Sorogoyen took Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor for Denis Ménochet at Tokyo) and Venice (World War III directed by Houman Seyedi took the Special Jury Prize) that took the top prizes at the event. International Competition offerings showed a generous slate of future classics, from Ashkal – a slow-burn horror on police corruption with a haunting final scene – and a sinister portrayal of relationships gone wrong in Manticore.

Yet it was the Japanese films both in and out of competition that gave a platform to a generation of Japanese talent waiting to be celebrated beyond the noise of the same few names regularly trotted out beyond Japan’s borders.

One Japanese competition film to win an award at the event was for a veteran of the festival, as director Rikiya Imaizumi took home the audience award for By The Window. Rather than a typical story of a man processing the affair of his wife while becoming closer with a writer themselves, it approaches the subject in a matter-of-fact manner that leaves a lot to surprise over its perhaps-too-long runtime. It’s a film doing a lot with a little, and strong dialogue pontificating on the emotional strength of both its main characters and everyone else in this web of relationships carrying the feature.

While intriguing, it’s still hard not to view this as a safe, rather conventional Japanese drama with a bit of whimsy for the mainstream. On the other hand, Mountain Woman by Ainu Mosir director Takeshi Fukunaga, proved an enthralling and unique period film leaning heavily both into socio-political commentary on the role of women in Japanese society both then and now and the intersection between classical spirituality and brutal reality. It was also unafraid to show the bleak realities often glossed over, opening on a newborn baby being murdered because another mouth to feed is too much for their famine-impacted village.

Yet it was Daishi Matsunaga’s Egoist and the beautiful performances from its lead stars Ryohei Suzuki and Hio Miyazawa that I can’t help feel was more deserving of recognition. An unapologetic gay romance (here between a fashion editor and his personal trainer) is rare in Japanese cinema, and even outside the country is rarely captured and portrayed with this much vulnerability and sensuality for the sheer joy of skinship and connection. Suzuki is hardly a newcomer, yet rarely has he appeared so vulnerable on screen, and even as the film threatens to bury its gays, it delivers a story on the power of their love that perseveres and takes new form without a dry eye left in the theater.

Both of these latter films offer something that defies the narrow box of modern-day slow-paced drama on family and status that Japanese cinema is typically typecast within. Period features rarely feel as confrontational or intimate as Mountain Woman, nor are Japanese films typically considered as queer and loving as Egoist. And this is just to talk about the competition lineup, with an Out of Competition slate of Japanese films that elevate themselves beyond even these.

Bar Fukunaga, the other directors and actors featured in competition represent an internationally under-appreciated old guard rather than a new generation of talent. It’s newcomer directors breaking the rules, showcasing the potential for a new group of creators creating in the vein of One Cut of the Dead and We Are Little Zombies – rather than Ozu and Kurosawa – that left me most excited.

Brats, Be Ambitious is a perfect example. The Nippon Cinema Now selection was designed by the festival as a showcase of the modern landscape of Japanese cinema, and no film captured this quite like this. Director Adachi Shin has industry experience writing films like 100 Yen Love but is relatively inexperienced as a director. Yet his take on a Stand By Me-like coming of age story tackling the cusp of adolescence, broken homes, family separations, abuse and more, is successful because, at its core, these are kids acting and experiencing the world around them like kids.

This is a story from the perspective of a child, so it’s refreshing to see the lengths they went to retain this youthful perspective. Indulgent multi-minute long-takes are frequent and take us excitedly across town on bikes to meet friends with reckless childhood energy, weaving in and out of ragtag homes and narrow streets with reckless abandon. Yet these same long takes also allow for raw emotion true to the pain of falling out or reconciling with a friend, without pause because who knows how you tell a friend you care for them at the age of 12. Childish emotions rush to the surface and it’s messy, because that’s childhood, isn’t it?

And the cited influence for these long takes according to the director in a post-film Q&A? The unavoidable influence of indie success story One Cut of the Dead.

Which brings us to i ai, a film I’d proudly champion above any other at the event. Why take inspiration from film at all, if your aim is to capture music’s impact? Raw musical emotion is best captured by a musician, and this is a tale that uses the emotions put into every chord in live music to weave a wonderful fourth wall-breaking art piece about what it means to love and grieve, and the power of music to bring words and sound to the indescribable. We begin in the cinema as we view the blank screen with the cast, questioning what we’re about to see before a single word is uttered, in a clear request to consider this reflection of life against your own.

Director MahiTo The People comes not from the world of cinema but from activist music group GEZAN, and his calls for action to reject a passive approach to the media we hear and understand its true impact on the world comes from the mind of someone who has seen the impact his work has had on others first-hand. When you need someone in your life they will be there but you can’t stand and let it idly pass you by, so you need to act, even after the end credits roll, in one of the most moving ending sequences in years.

We hawk over the minutiae of lineups and films from the likes of Cannes, Toronto and Venice to the point we sometimes lose sight of what regional festivals can offer. Tokyo Film Festival may have larger plans and a long journey to reach its lofty goals, but this year’s event showcases the value having a festival like this on the world stage offers. While the international image of Japanese cinema remains dominated by the image of auteurs from decades ago (indeed, with a Kurosawa award and closing on Oliver Hermanus’ Living which remakes his 1954 film Ikiru, he remains a towering presence), a festival making an effort to highlight the best of its youthful next generation on a world stage should be celebrated.