(Tokyo) Thursday preview screening: Kani Kosen

[Jonathan M Hall]

As has been the case with previous screenings at the Foreign  
Correspondents' Club of Japan, FCCJ Movie Committee organizer Karen  
Severns is inviting KineJapan members to this  a special preview  
screening of The Crab Cannery Ship with director Sabu available  
afterwards for Q&A.  Interested members should contact Karen Severns  
to reserve a place: kjs30 at gol.com

Respectfully submitted,

Jonathan M Hall





Special Sneak Preview Screening: Kanikosen

Time: 2009 May 28 19:00 - 21:30
Summary:
SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW SCREENING followed by a Q&A session with the  
film's director, Sabu

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2009. 7:00 p.m. 20th floor

KANIKOSEN (THE CRAB CANNERY SHIP) Japan, 2009. 109 minutes.

Written and directed by Sabu
Based on Takiji Kobayashi’s Kanikosen
Produced by Yasushi Udagawa
Starring Ryuhei Matsuda, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Hirofumi Arai, Tokio  
Emoto, Kengo Kora and comedy duo TKO (Takehiro Kimoto and Takayuki  
Kinoshita)

Film courtesy of Xanadeux

Language:In Japanese, with English subtitles


Description:

The Movie Committee is pleased to host this special sneak preview of  
Kanikosen ahead of its nationwide opening in June.
If you've been wondering what fires up today's Japanese youth, look  
no further: For the past several years, Takiji Kobayashi's 1929 novel  
Kanikosen, about a workers' revolt on a crab cannery ship, has been  
surging in popularity due to the sense of exploitation that many  
young "freeter" workers in the Japanese workforce are experiencing. A  
landmark in proletarian literature, Kobayashi's novel was a steady  
seller until last year, when a new edition and a manga version sent  
sales spiraling from 5,000 to over 500,000. Now, iconoclastic  
director Sabu has created a live-action version that plays up his own  
black-comic vision and is sure to electrify Japan's under-30 underclass.

The film is set on a crab fishing/processing vessel in the Sea of  
Okhotsk, where the evil supervisor (Nishijima) has pushed the workers  
to the limits of human endurance. After considering mass suicide as a  
way out of their misery (in one of the film's funniest sequences),  
the shipmates gradually band together to find ways to overcome the  
oppressive ruling regime. Nightmare Detective star Ryuhei Matsuda  
plays the sailor who spearheads a mutiny, but only after he's escaped  
and spent time on a very loopy Russian crab ship.

Writer-director Sabu (aka Hiroyuki Tanaka) has won awards from  
Bangkok to Berlin for his absurdist, frenetic films, including a  
FIPRESCI Prize in 2003 for The Blessing Bell. Among his other titles  
are D.A.N.G.A.N. Runner (which inspired Run Lola Run), Postman Blues,  
Unlucky Monkey, Drive, Hold Up Down and Dead Run.

All movie screenings are private, noncommercial events restricted to  
FCCJ members and their guests.

Karen Severns, Edwin Karmiol. Movie Committee.
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