Japanese movies: 22-01-08

Just a quick note to let everyone know that tomorrow night, Tuesday January 22, SBS has two Japan-related films on that look well worth checking out.

From 10pm, Hot Docs features Young Yakuza:

Yakuza is a term which originally stems from the world of gambling, but the word, literally meaning ‘eight-nine-three’, has other connotations. In Japan, more than 86,000 so-called yakuza are members of consortiums that are fronts for the mafia. The yakuza are led by dictatorial bosses and operate in a world with its own set of rules. In contemporary Japan, it is hard to find enough subservient and reliable disciples, who can be accepted into the clan after a one-year internship. Young Yakuza follows one of them, a 20-year-old freeloader named Naoki, who interns with one of the leading consortiums: the Kumagai clan in Tokyo’s Shinagawa district.

From 11:40pm, it’s the movie that tries to capture a unique demographic: Japanese surfers in Australia. I love films that concentrate on one particular subculture – if you do too, check out Bondi Tsunami:

Two young Japanese surfers, philosophical Shark and happy-go-lucky Yuto, set off on a road trip in an old Holden station-wagon up the east coast of Australia, stopping at beaches to go surfing. The pair soon pick up a pretty Japanese girl, Kimiko, an obsessive souvenir soft-toy buyer and fashion victim, and later a mystery man with cool dreadlocks. As they travel, they discover Australian culture along the way, as strange as the Big Sheep, the Big Pineapple and beetroot in hamburgers. The vast landscape inspires Shark’s soul searching. The taciturn passenger, whom they now call Ganja Man, becomes even more mystical when he calls up great surf and when he disappears in the desert for a surf.

Thanks, SBS!