Tokyo Sonata

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

2008 / 119min / DCP

Kurosawa’s reputation was made as perhaps the most formidable figure in the “J-horror” boom, so his about-face into contemporary-set shomin-geki melodrama à la Yasujirō Ozu was an unexpected—but not unwelcome—surprise… though beneath the placid surface of Tokyo Sonata, sinister stirrings are very much visible. Salaryman Teruyuki Kagawa, newly out of work, struggles to keep up the illusion of employment for his family, consisting of one son who lights out to join the US Army, another with a not-so-dirty secret of his own (the scamp is taking piano lessons), and a wife (Kyōko Koizumi) who finds an unlikely solution to her unhappy domestic existence when she’s kidnapped by a home invader. Winner of the Prix Un Certain Regard at the 61st Cannes Film Festival.

Distributor: HereMedia

Part of All Happy Families Are Alike