Japanese Literature on Screen

[Roland Domenig]

There are several TV-dramas and -series based on Miyabe's novels (directed
by among others Furuhata Yasuo and Sawaii Shinichiro), but CROSSFIRE was the
first adaptation of one of her novels for the cinema.
Last month NHK aired the series FUSHIGI SOSHI based on short-stories by
Miyabe. 

Asada Jiro's short story LOVE LETTER was first published in March 1996 in
the literary magazine ORU YOMIMONO.


Roland Domenig
Institute of East Asian Studies
Vienna University


> I read a wonderful novel recently by Miyabe Miyuki called ALL SHE WAS WORTH:
> a detective story with a social conscience with the subheading: "In modern
> Japan, consumer goods are literally to die for...".  English translation is
> copyrighted 1996 and first published in Japan in 1992 as "Kasha".  Miyabe's
> brief bio says that "ten films based on her work have been produced".  Apart
> from Kaneko Shusuke's PYROKINESIS (Cross Fire), what would these be?  I
> enjoyed PYROKINESIS, but wish it had pumped up the politics a bit more and
> I'm generally curious about impressions of the original novel and how they
> compare with the film adaptation.
> 
> And this morning, I watched Korean film FAILAN which I completely loved.
> It's based on Asada Jiro's novel, previously adapted in 1998 by Morisaki
> Azuma as LOVE LETTER (written in katakana) in 1998.  I was wondering when
> Asada's novel was written since there are parallels to Iwai's own LOVE
> LETTER.  FAILAN is about the enoblement of a lowly gangster in Inchon, South
> Korea, after the death of the Chinese wife he has never met, discovering a
> love story he never knew through her letters.  It's pure melodrama so many
> of you will run a mile.  I guess it's available on DVD with English
> subtitles, but you can double-check on Darcy Paquet's website:
> http://www.koreanfilm.org/
> 
> Stephen
>