"With the 2021 appointment of programming director Ichiyama Shozo, Tokyo-like the Busan International Film Festival-is now designed to be a launching pad for art-leaning pan-Asian cinema in its geographically most-broadly-defined sense. As a locally-based friend described it, Ichiyama was poached for the sharp curatorial sensibility he formerly exercised at Tokyo's other film festival, FilmEx (which he co-founded), and the results are credible."
"The final film I saw here, Yang Liping's Echoes of the Orient, is an prototypical example of TIFF's programming remit, a sophomore feature by a Shanghai-born, Japan-trained director who's obviously spent a lot of time with Taiwanese New Wave staples and is otherwise cinephilically inclined (his 2023 short Gone with the Wind's poster straightforwardly proclaims "A Love Letter for French New Wave")."
"Over 156 leisurely minutes, Liping observes the trio of Japanese salarywoman Rin (Osu Mizuho), who meets-cute-ish with Chinese transplant Buliang (Zhang Ninghao) while very drunk at a show by legendary Japanese rocker Midori (Tamura Morocco). Midori thrusts the mic in Rin's face and asks her what she wants: "I want to get married!" she screams with counterintuitively grrl-rock fervor, then the band gets into it."
In 2021 the Tokyo International Film Festival shifted away from commercial programming toward art-leaning pan-Asian cinema under programming director Ichiyama Shozo. Ichiyama was recruited from FilmEx and brings a sharp curatorial sensibility. The festival now aims to serve as a launching pad for regionally broad, cinephilic work. Yang Liping's Echoes of the Orient exemplifies that remit as a 156-minute sophomore feature by a Shanghai-born, Japan-trained director influenced by Taiwanese New Wave and French New Wave. The film follows Japanese salarywoman Rin and Chinese transplant Buliang after a drunken meeting at a rock show and incorporates contemporary Japanese music and observational pacing.
#tokyo-international-film-festival #pan-asian-cinema #ichiyama-shozo #echoes-of-the-orient #yang-liping
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