All Under the Moon

In the organizer's words:

月はどっちに出ている
Tsuki wa dotchi ni dete iru

Director: SAI Yôichi
1993, 109 minutes, OmeU, 35 mm

Not suitable for viewers under the age of 18

This tragicomedy, which was voted the best Japanese film of 1993 by the magazine Kinema Junpô, focuses on the experiences of Asian immigrants in Tokyo. Director Sai Yôichi (1949-2022) himself was the son of a Japanese woman and a Korean man who immigrated to Japan.

The Korean-Japanese cab driver Chung Nam is surrounded by strange colleagues, including an ex-boxer and an illegal immigrant from Iran. Chung takes problems such as racism and the threat of deportation in his stride, but his passion is for women. He tries to flirt with Filipina Connie, much to the displeasure of his mother, in whose karaoke bar the young woman works. Connie herself is also not thrilled by his advances and then the Korean boss of the cab company goes bankrupt.

Movie series
Turning Point
Japanese films from the 1990s

The decline of the studio system in the 1980s and the bursting of the speculative bubble at the beginning of the 1990s marked a turning point in the Japanese film industry. A generation of directors emerged who created independent productions with great creativity and small budgets, giving the film landscape an exciting new impetus. The series shows eight titles that impressively express this change.

It opens with a tragicomedy by Sai Yôichi about the lives of social minorities(Tsuki wa dotchi ni dete iru), followed by the story of the (sexual) relationship between two runners by Hiroki Ryûichi(800 Two Lap Runners). Suwa Nobuhiro, on the other hand, paints a multi-layered portrait of a young couple(2/Dyuo) and Kurosawa Kiyoshi, the master of thrillers and horror films, provides deep insights into the abysses of the human psyche(Hebi no michi; Karisuma). In a mixture of tragedy and comedy, Sabu tells the story of an unsuspecting letter carrier(Posutoman burûsu), while Kawase Naomi focuses on the problems of a family in a rural region(Moe no Suzaku). Finally, Miike Takashi is represented with a yakuza film full of absurdities(Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha).

The film series takes place in cooperation with the Nippon Connection film festival in Frankfurt (27.05. - 01.06.2025). Further information can be found at https://nipponconnection.com/

Price information:

Admission free