SUN 26 Jan • Japanese Sunshine and Sons Double Bill FROM UP ON POPPY HILL (U) 1.30 (Japan 2011) dir. Goro Miyazaki 92m. Subtitles. Digital. Voices of Masami Nagasawa, Junichi Okada, Keiko Takeshita. Another rich and vibrant animated feature from the wonderful Studio Ghibli. The setting is Yokohama 1963 and the central characters are the high school students who are the first generation of the new post-war Japan. It is a generation that needs to move forward without losing those things from the past that make them who they are. They may represent the breaking of a new dawn, but of course there’s still time for a little teenage romance... Trailer: youtube/watch?v=X4LUgw8Z8Gg + LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON (PG) 3.25 (Japan 2013) dir.Hirokazu Kore-eda 121m. Subtitles. Digital. Masaharu Fukuyama, Machiko Ono, Yôko Maki. Hirokazu Kore-eda’s playfully fresh perspective on a much-told ‘what if?’ tale – two baby boys, one from a working-class family, the other from a wealthy one, are switched at birth but the error is only discovered six years later – is a clear-eyed exploration of what parenthood actually means. It especially focuses on one of the fathers, affluent architect Ryota for whom this event provides a rare personal challenge, and one which he finds difficulty in understanding. Not so the two boys, and the director, in the great classical Japanese cinema tradition, captures their inner lives and thoughts perfectly. £10/£8 Concs/£6 Under 15’s/£28 Family ticket
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 11:57:02 +0000