News

Japanese Film Festival Online 2022 Streams 'Gon, the Little Fox' Short, The Great Passage Live-Action Film

The Japanese Film Festival Online 2022 event is streaming Takeshi Yashiro's 2019 stop-motion animation film Gon, the Little Fox and the live-action film adaptation Shion Miura's Fune o Amu (The Great Passage) novel on its website from November 15-21 as part of a pre-streaming lineup of five films.

The film festival is screening the five films in 24 countries including: South Korea, the Philippines, India, New Zealand, Ecuador, Spain, Indonesia, Vietnam, Nepal, the United States, Peru, Germany, Cambodia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Mexico, Hungary, Thailand, Myanmar, Australia, Argentina, Italy, and Egypt.

The films are screening in Japanese with subtitles in Arabic, Burmese, Central Khmer, English, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (Spain), Thai, and Vietnamese. Gon, the Little Fox also has Korean subtitles.

JFF describes the Gon, the Little Fox short:

When Gon, a playful orphaned fox, finds that young Hyoju has lost his mother, he tries to comfort him and make amends for his own earlier mischiefs by secretly bringing small gifts to the boy every day. But Hyoju doesn't realize who is behind the anonymous gifts, and the two are headed for a heartbreaking climax.

The short is based on Nakichi Niimi's 1932 novel Gongitsune, and stars Masato Tanaka as Gon and Miyu Irino as Hyojyu. Takeshi Yashiro, who previously produced the shorts "Dear November Boy" and "Norman the Snowman," was the director and animator for the short, and he also penned the script.

The Great Passage opened in theaters in Japan in 2013. The film won the Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year in 2013.

JFF describes the film:

Publishing house salesman Majime (Matsuda RYUHEI) has an earnestness about him that sets him apart from his peers. But he has a discerning sensibility when it comes to language, which lands him in the dictionary editorial department. He ends up editing "The Great Passage," a huge dictionary with 240,000 entries.

Yuya Ishii directed the film with Kensaku Watanabe penning the screenplay. The film stars Ryuhei Matsuda, Aoi Miyazaki, and Joe Odagiri.

Miura's novel originally shipped in 2011, and it inspired a manga adaptation by Haruko Kumota that ran in Kodansha's ITAN magazine.

An anime adaptation that used Kumota's original character designs premiered on Fuji TV's Noitamina timeslot in October 2016. The series streamed on Amazon Prime in some territories as it aired, but did not stream in the United States until the launch of Anime Strike in January 2017.

The full Japanese Film Festival Online 2022 event will be held from February 14-27 and will screen 20 films for free in 25 countries. The films will have subtitles in 15 languages.

Thanks to Jordan Scott for the news tip.

Source: Japanese Film Festival's website