Sabu's Usagi doroppu sneak preview @ FCCJ

[Nornes, Markus]

I saw this at the Shanghai Film Festival. It's a fun movie, and presents a very different (and mostly unbelievable) kind of masculinity. Indeed, it played at the festival's main venue, a late silent era movie palace with over a thousand seats. It was packed, and at least 90 percent of the audience was female and under 25 years of age. When the film ended, they brought the front lights up slightly and someone entered the theater from the corner door. There was a electric ripple of excitement bolting through the audience, but it died down to nothing with an audible let-down when the girls realized it was Sabu and not Matsuyama Ken'ichi. Obviously, this was why the theater was packed. I've never seen a festival crowd like that for a Japanese film. It palpably felt like a new era in Japanese cinema. 

Markus