Seven highlights from the UK’s biggest celebration of Japanese cinema

Wake up! While you were yawning at the naffness of this year’s Oscars nominations and snoozing your way through the multiplexes’ blockbuster discards in ​“dump month” January, one of the country’s most dynamic film festivals pulled up to the doorstep with an arsenal from the far reaches of the Pacific.

The (deep breath) Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme kicks off today. Its the biggest event celebrating Japanese cinema in the whole of Blighty, and it offers a bumper package of features from one of the most enduringly hip film industries in the world. Among them: ruminative social dramas, made-for-peanuts gems, glossy thrillers and prize-baiting studio hits. They’re touring all over the UK like some magical rollercoaster of cinema, gracing screens in a series of fleeting events in London, Manchester, Belfast, Edinburgh, Cardiff and 30-odd other cities elsewhere over the next two months.

This year’s 34^th (!) edition, loosely grouped under the theme of ​“justice, justification and judgement”, conveniently arrives hot on the heels of the country’s Japan Academy Film Prize nominations. And guess what? The JFTFP programme includes a bunch of works considered the best of the year at home. How convenient! Since there’s still a jumbo 26 films to choose from, THE FACE has picked a sensational seven to get you started below. You can find all the latest screening times via the JFTFP website.

Bushido (Kazuya Shiraishi, 2024)

One-off screenings take place in London, Sheffield, Newcastle, Manchester and more between Saturday 8^th February and Monday 24^th March. Full screening details via Japan Foundation.

In a dusty Edo suburb marked by tenement houses, brothels and blooming cherry blossom trees, stoic warrior Yanagida (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi) inspires opponents like bullish pawnbroker Genbee (veteran actor Jun Kunimura) with his unwavering maintenance of a strict code of honour and ethics – even on the go board. But when new information about his tragic past comes to light, Yanagida decides to amend his strategy in order to redeem his family’s honour.

One of the most gripping and dramatic offerings at this year’s festival is a samurai epic from acclaimed filmmaker Kazuya Shiraishi, best known for intense crime thrillers like 2018’s The Blood of Wolves. But don’t go into Bushido expecting tense swordfights and duels right off the bat. This character-driven spectacle unfolds (at least to begin with) through the quiet machinations of an ancient Asian strategy game akin to chess or Othello.

Meticulously paced and boasting top-shelf performances from an excellent cast (Kusanagi will compete for Best Actor at this year’s Japanese Academy Awards), Bushido is also a resounding technical masterpiece. Umitaro Abe’s sumptuous score, which combines elegant pianos, harps and chimes, is as dignified as the hypnotic camerawork, which tracks and floats with a ghostly gracefulness. Stanley Kubrick’s revolutionary cinematography in 1975’s Barry Lyndon served as a key stylistic inspiration. As such, every shot, whether that’s candle-lit in darkness or flared by bright, blooming sunlight, is full of eye-popping depth and nuance.

All the Long Nights (Shô Miyake, 2024)

One-off screenings take place in London, Manchester, Dundee, Nottingham and more between Saturday 8^th February and Monday 31^st March. Full screening details via Japan Foundation

Premenstrual syndrome sufferer Misa (Mone Kamishiraishi) harbours shame after a series of embarrassing outbursts in the workplace. After starting a new job, she meets Takatoshi (Hokuto Matsumura), an introverted loner suffering from a debilitating panic disorder. Though initially at odds, the two colleagues soon form a gentle, platonic bond as they grow to understand each other’s conditions and foster a deep sense of empathy as they become tentative chums.

Director Shô Miyake is a bright spark in contemporary Japanese cinema. His previous feature, Small, Slow But Steady – a boxing drama about a deaf athlete forced to navigate the closure of her gym – was an understated highlight at the Berlin and London Film Festivals in 2022. Now, this graceful follow-up – a visual treat built on suburban cinematography, grainy film stock and bright, natural lighting that augments a spectrum of warm, autumnal hues – has landed major nods at the Japanese Academy Awards. It competes for the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress gongs at the 2025 hoorah.

Penalty Loop (Shinji Araki, 2023)

One-off screenings take place in London, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol and more between Saturday 15^th February and Saturday 22^nd March. Full screening details via Japan Foundation.

When his girlfriend’s corpse is raked from a lakebed, aspiring architect Jun (Ryûya Wakaba) seeks revenge against her killer, and achieves it with cruel brutality in an industrial greenhouse parking lot. Job done? Not quite. Because when Jun awakens the next morning, he realises that he’s cursed to repeat his vengeance in a daily cycle of poisonings, stabbings and gunshots. He’s not the only one: blue-collar worker Mizoguchi (Yûsuke Iseya), the woman-killer-turned-victim, is also conscious of the recurring time loop. But as these adversaries go through the motions of violence, an unexpected understanding develops between them.

It may sound like a violent twist on Groundhog Day, but this is a far more restrained and arthouse affair than the dramatic synopsis implies. The pace here is dreamy, almost ethereal, owing to the long stretches of minimal dialogue and lingering shots of cloudy skies, rocky shorelines and snaking overpasses. The whole world in Penalty Loop feels barren and eerie, with a peppering of Black Mirror overtones further underpinned by the film’s clinical cinematography and nauseating sound design. As it ultimately turns out, there’s more to this kill-sleep-repeat story than meets the eye.

The Inugami Family (Kon Ichikawa, 1976)

One-off screenings take place in London, Bristol, Edinburgh, Belfast and more between Sunday 9^th February and Saturday 29^th March. Full screening details via Japan Foundation.

One retrospective work included in this year’s programme comes from legendary filmmaker Kon Ichikawa, a veteran of Japan’s ​“Golden Age of Cinema” who’s best known for anti-war polemics The Burmese Harp (an Oscar nominee in 1956) and 1965 documentary Tokyo Olympiad, a technical masterwork widely regarded as one of the greatest sports movies of all time.

Having never previously received a wide release outside of Japan, The Inugami Family is a far lesser-known Ichikawa work in the West, making this sprawling, small-town murder mystery a true hidden gem. Featuring gruesome killings, dubious identities and a hefty inheritance up for grabs, this colourful whodunnit is elevated by a soulful score from cult jazz musician Yuji Ohno (Lupin III) and boasts pristine cinematography that dwells on wood-beamed houses, mountainside lakes and chrysanthemum gardens in all their rustic glory.

The film opens with the Inugami clan gathered at the deathbed of the family patriarch, a pharmaceutical tycoon with a sizable fortune to his name. His will soon delivers a shocking twist: the inheritance will go to a woman from outside the family – on the condition that she marries one of his three grandsons. As tensions mount, the third of these bachelors, a disfigured war veteran, arrives in town just as a string of mysterious murders plunge the family into chaos.

In the Wake (Takahisa Zeze 2021)

One-off screenings take place in London, Manchester, Dundee, Newcastle and more between Saturday, 8^th February and Monday, 24^th March. Full screening details via Japan Foundation

Nine years after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, three loners grapple with complex personal tragedies as the city of Sendai is rocked by a series of serial killings. Bereaved detective Tomashino (Hiroshi Abe, Still Walking) is dispatched to investigate after an abducted social worker is found starved to death, while disturbed industrial worker and convicted arsonist Tone (Takeru Satoh) struggles to reintegrate into society after his release from prison. Elsewhere, welfare officer Maruyama (Kaya Kiyohara) confronts perceived benefits fraudsters over dubious welfare claims in a zealous campaign for justice.

This glossy prestige feature (nominated for 12 Japanese Academy Awards in 2022) boasts an intricate narrative that delicately weaves its protagonists’ troubled lives together through a harrowing police procedural plot. With a bleak and serious tone underlined through the use of a cold, blue lens filter, a searing social critique of injustice in Japan’s welfare system is brought right to the fore. It makes for pensive viewing today in the wake of last year’s killing of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson in New York – a story that has sparked widespread debate on morality, systemic neglect and corporate accountability in the West.

A Samurai in Time (Junichi Yasuda, 2024)

One-off screenings take place in London, Manchester, Dundee, Newcastle and more between Saturday 8^th February and Monday 31^st March. Full screening details via Japan Foundation

Film production is often a labour of love. But when it comes to pure blood, sweat and tears, few recent movies can rival A Samurai in Time (which also gets a home media release in the UK via Third Window Films in April).

Largely self-funded by Kyoto rice farmer and filmmaker Junichi Yasuda, who sold his car and ran through all his savings to finance the feature, this charming and quirky tale follows an Edo-period samurai (Makiya Yamaguchi, Confessions) who, after unwittingly travelling 130 years through time, ends up working as a film and TV extra in the present day. Conceived with a crew of just 10 people, the movie was shot at a famous permanent open-air set that also operates as a theme park and uses borrowed costumes from other period productions.

Despite opening on just a single screen in Tokyo, A Samurai in Time expanded to more than 50 screens in the weeks thereafter, with sold-out showings at 500-seat multiplexes contributing to an end-of-year gross of ¥720 million (£3.8 million) from a budget of just ¥26m (£136,000). Now, having also received acclaim overseas via our very own FrightFest and Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival, it’s been nominated for a whopping seven Japanese Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. Not bad for a DIY passion project!

Let’s Go Karaoke! (Nobuhiro Yamashita, 2024)

One-off screenings take place in London, Cardiff, Liverpool, Edinburgh and more between Saturday 8^th February and Thursday 20^th March. Full screening details via Japan Foundation

During a heavy rainstorm, smart-suited yakuza thug Narita (Go Ayano – up for Best Actor at the 2025 Japanese Academy Awards) is drawn to a city concert hall after hearing heavenly voices emanating from within. When the rendition finishes, Narita demands the help of schoolboy soprano Oka (Jun Saitō): Narita’s gang’s yearly karaoke competition is coming up soon, and if his singing is not up to scratch, he’ll be punished via humiliating and painful tattoo branding. Initially reluctant to cooperate, Oka soon strikes up an unlikely relationship with the hard-rock-loving mobster (song of choice: X Japan​’s ​‘Kurenai’), which takes on a deeper meaning for the 12-year-old when his own voice begins to weaken.

Director Nobuhiro Yamashita (whose Cannes-approved animated feature Ghost Cat Anzu screens elsewhere on the programme) has proved his chops in this sub-genre before: 2005’s high school girl band drama Linda Linda Linda is a cult classic of modern Japanese cinema starring South Korean legend Bae Doona (Sympathy for Mr Vengeance). His latest humble drama is spiked with comedy – one montage in which a cast of hapless gangster singers are judged for their karaoke performances is particularly hilarious – but it’s the heart and feel-good factor that ultimately stands out here, thanks to a tight script and some brilliant chemistry shared between its two mismatched leads.