Tokyo International Film Festival & Friendship

Playing in the nearby theaters at Roppongi Hills as well as Shibuya, the Tokyo International Film Festival took place during the middle of October. As a movie enthusiast, I was excited at the chance to see some top foreign films (which all had English subtitles) during my time abroad.
As you can see, the main theme for the event was the environment and to emphasize this they used a green carpet made from recyclables instead of the traditional red carpet in the opening ceremony. The main focus for the festival was the "Competition" - where 14 films from all over the world (from USA to Hong Kong to Iran) were up for consideration to win the Grand Prix Award as the best picture. Unfortunately Japan's theaters aren't quite as big as US counterparts, so for many of the shows tickets were sold out.

After looking through the brochure, there were about 2 or 3 films that I really wanted to see, but my number 1 by far was "Red Cliff." Red Cliff is an epic 3 hour action/drama about the battle of the Red Cliffs between 3 kingdoms in ancient China. It was also directed by John Woo, the genius behind Mission Impossible 2 and Face/Off. Despite tickets being sold out through all the major distributors, I went to the theatre with a friend of mine, Kevin, in the hopes of scalping a pair of seats.
Throughout the Roppongi Hills mall complex, they put up many different decorations and promotional posters for the film festival. Even going so far as to convert some restaurants into special lounge bars for film executives & staffers.

I was wearing my faux glasses for the event in the hopes of looking more like a critic, but unfortunately it wasn't to be our night. Both theaters showing Red Cliff were booked up and asking people if they wanted to sell theirs wasn't exactly working either.

So Kevin and I decided to kill some time by walking around Roppongi until later in the night when we planned to meet up with a bunch of different friends later in the night. All of us got together around 10:00 at a British-style pub called Hub. Along with the TUJ guys (Kevin, Nick, and Harry), Hisashi and Takuro (2 Japanese college students from Keio University who I met at the baseball game) joined us for some drinking. To add further international flavor, I invited my Dutch buddy Sjors (not pictured), who I had met during the Dream.6 event.

nick harry & takuro
takuro, kevin, me, and hisashi

We spent an hour or so chatting and getting to know each other better while enjoying some of the cheapest cocktails and drinks offered in Tokyo. Hisashi & Takuro were really funny and talked about girls a lot while Sjors detailed some of his experiences in Tokyo and favorite places to party. But the night was just beginning; we had all planned to spend the night a nearby club and after getting turned away by a bouncer who didn't want 5 foreign guys coming in with no girls, Sjors recommended we check out a place called 'the Warehouse'. Located near TUJ, the Warehouse was having a special guest DJ in from Germany called Extrawelt playing his neo-trance style of electronic music.

We stayed out until 5:30 AM at Warehouse, and I have to say that the music was awesome. I don't really like the hip hop stuff you usually hear in clubs, but Extrawelt's techno was great and he put out some good beats.

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To tie up some loose ends related to this story we're going to fast forward a bit.

I ended up trying two other times to catch a film at the festival and at first I was denied yet again, but on a Friday afternoon following my classes I ran over to Shibuya and managed to get one of the last seats for "Claustrophobia". A movie filmed in Chinese and produced in Hong Kong, Claustrophobia detailed the story of a tender love affair between Tom - a good natured family man and marketing director; and Pearl - a young smart girl working in the same office. The movie was cut up into 5 scenes showing important events between the two for during the past year. These 5 scenes were shown in reverse order with the pivotal break-up coming within the first 10 minutes, while the rest of the movie you were left with all of the awkward moments and subtle conversations that took place while trying to keep their affair secret.

I really enjoyed the movie and although it didn't win the Competition I've read online that it received mostly positive reviews from critics. My only regret was not being able to understand the movie in its language, since I was reading subtitles the whole time, I felt like I was missing out on the more hidden meanings behind what was being said.

After the movie they did a Q&A session with the main actor and actress, as well as the writer/director. Luckily they had an English translator who allowed me and about 3 other people in the theatre to understand everything. Another interesting tidbit: they were translating questions 3 ways from Japanese - Chinese - English so that the viewers as well as the actors could comprehend what was being asked.
After the Q&A, the actors held a special greeting with the audience where they shook hands with the movie goers and took a quick photo with the earliest group. These hand-shake sessions seem to be very popular in Japan as I've seen a few in the different events I've been to during my time abroad.

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In regards to my buddies Hisashi & Takuro, just last week we got together during the afternoon to have a baseball catch. Both of them play on a club team similar to what I did at Georgetown back last fall and they enjoyed the opportunity to play with an American. In addition to throwing the ball around we talked about different baseball lingo used in Japan & the US.

Sjors has been mentioning various clubs & things to do during the weekends but we haven't been able to match schedules since.

Hopefully, we'll be able to get the group together again soon!