Safe for Weebs

It's playing in various cinemas in UK with English subtitles for at least a week, starting on 11 March.

I expect cinemas in Singapore and some other South East Asian countries will be playing it with English subtitles if it's released in them.

And if it's being released in cinemas in the UK, I would expect that it will also be released in ones with bigger populations and/or where East Asian cinema is more popular.

Those rid ties are a common symbol in East Asian culture; I've seen it alluded to in various screen works, comics, even song lyrics. Particularly one indie animated short I'd like to link to as an example but have no idea how I'd find it again on YouTube…

This will be in cinemas in the UK starting 11 March 2022!
https://trinitycineasia.com/films/till-we-meet-again/

In some cities it's getting many screenings; in a couple it's only getting a single screening, early in the afternoon, at the same time as the BTS concert that's live in cinemas this weekend. Guess which of these two kinds of cities I'm in.

I have to bite as this is a pet peeve of mine (well, I have a zoo of them): despite what distributors will try to convince you of and what people have got approved by IMDb (in contradiction of its stated rules), the Palme d'or does not have any publically announced nominations.

When you see a claim of being "nominated for the Palme d'or" it usually means that the movie was selected to be in the Official Competition at the Festival de Cannes (which Palmes are awarded to the winning feature and short in). A selection isn't a nomination, and, at least for features, it's not a reliable indication of the movie itself being much liked, because they can be selected before they've been finished, based the strength of the lead staff's previous work and perhaps a work-in-progress version.

Though there's no such thing as a Palme d'or nomination, the movie did earn Hamaguchi and Oe the festival's Award for Best Screenplay, however, which much more than just a selection is an achievement worth mentioning.

1. In cinemas in many countries. Even if it was released some months ago, it might be getting more screenings now. In some countries it has only recently been released or is coming soon. Check lists of cinema release dates in your country to see if it's listed anywhere on them. There's where anyone SHOULD watch it, if possible.

2. If the first option isn't possible, in some countries where it's been released in cinemas it's also avilable to rent and sometimes also to buy for a premium amount on some video on demand services and/or as a virtual cinema release that supports local cinemas. The distributor of it in your country will have information about this.

3. In the US it's included in HBO Max for subscribers, and in some other countries it is coming to MUBI a bit later.

In a lot of countries one can see which VOD services it's on at justwatch.com/us/movie/drive-my-car-2021 and set an alert if it's not on any yet. If you create a MUBI account (you don't need to subscribe) and click the + to add it to your watchlist from mubi.com/films/drive-my-car you can get an email if it's added to MUBI in your country. I'm sure they'll be Blu-ray Disc releases with extras in some countries, eventually, too.

It's been released raw on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in Japan and (much more affordably) on DVD officially in Taiwan, since the middle of last year, under the title "我啊，走自己的路".

It's currently playing in some cinemas across the UK with English subtitles, so it definitely has official English subtitles, though it's not been released with them on DVD or BD yet: https://www.jpf-film.org.uk/films/ora-ora-be-goin-alone

UK distributor Third Window Films released two of the screenwriter and director's previous movies with English subtitles ("The Woodsman and the Rain" and "The Story of Yonosuke "), so they're a relatively strong contender for releasing this widely online and on disc with English subtitles (and the discs could be imported to countries other than the UK). On the other hand, he has made numerous others in between that they nor any other distributor in the UK has released yet.

What really annoys me is when a movie with wonderful work by hundreds of other people is treated as some kind of "film non grata" because of the personal life of just one person in the cast. For all their demands on the sneaky cleanness of their artists (above and beyond that for any talent in their actual profession), Japanese companies and people I feel also have the respect to not completely throw away everyone else's work because of one person falling foul of their expectations, by either reshooting the scenes with another actor if there are few enough (and with few enough other people with them) that it's possible, or just releasing what was made if reshooting isn't workable. And they eventually allow people second chances, to some degree (Higashide has now used up his second chance, too, but this and "Wife of a Spy" were made before anyone knew that would happen.)

In the UK, I was excited that "Minamata" would give me a rare chance to see KASE Ryo (among other Japanese actors, though it was Kase that really got me excited) in a cinema, but the distributor reacted to Johnny DEPP–gate by giving it a buried release in a few cinemas across the country (none near me) to fulfil the letter of their obligation to release it in cinemas, while not advertising it at all, not even mentioning the release on their own social accounts. In Japan, it got a well-advertised release (with a campaign that leveraged the movie's supporting cast, festival selections, critical receptions and source books to promote it, so it didn't have to rely only on its controversial star) and has been regularly mentioned in this award season's nominees for foreign films (if clearly helped by it not being too foreign for Japanese audiences).

It's been available on DCP with official English subs to festivals and distributors since it was released, according to https://jfdb.jp/en/title/9227

It's currently playing in cinemas in the UK with the English subtitles, so they definitely exist: https://www.jpf-film.org.uk/films/ora-ora-be-goin-alone

One of the screenwriter and director's previous movies is available in France at https://www.outbuster.com/completement-a-l-est/story-of-yonosuke (I've just realised that this is from the writer and director of "The Woodsman and the Rain", which makes me even more excited to see it and frustrated that I didn't find this out earlier so I could have specifically recommended it to people in parts of the UK where it played earlier). So if "Yonosuke" is popular enough on that service, they could license some of the others.

It might be something that Art House Films will release in France, considering the kind of Japanese movies they license: https://arthouse-films.fr/films-art-house/

Or, if you're OK with English subtitles, Third Window Films, which have released two of OKITA Shuichi's previous movies in the UK, could release it on Blu-ray Disc in the UK, which would be relatively easy to import into France (not part of the European Union, but the same region code for DVD and BD as France).

It's been released in cinemas in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan and Portugal (and is now out on home video in some of those countries). It's been confirmed that it will be coming to cinemas in the UK and Ireland, Germany, Spain and Brazil later this year. If you check the "International releases" section at https://en.unifrance.org/movie/47518/10-000-nights-in-the-jungle that will continue to be updated as releases in other countries are announced.

In countries where it doesn't have a release announced yet, it might be found playing in film festivals. Some months after the cinema release in the UK on 15 April 2022, there will be a UK Blu-ray Disc with English subtitles, which could be imported to other countries. It might be locked to region B, but if you can get around that if you have a cheap Blu-ray Disc player that you can change the region code of with codes one can find online.

Watched pirated versions of movies doesn't help the makers of the movie to earn anything so that they can continue making movies, nor does it help the makers of the subtitles to continue making English subtitles for East Asian media. More worrying is that, because the revenue from advertising on those pirate sites isn't going to the makers of the movies nor of the subtitles, there's no telling who it is going to and what it is funding. It could be funding the activities of violent extremist groups, for all we can know.

If you love the movie and would like the makers of it to continue making movies and for them to be subtitled in English, then try to see it legally if you can. It was only premiered last year, and movies can still take two to three years to be released in some countries (it used to be more like four to five years). So there's still time for it to be released in cinemas and on home video in many more countries.

It's coming to cinemas in the UK (and possibly Ireland) on 15 April 2022:
http://thirdwindowfilms.com/films/onoda-10000-nights-in-the-jungle/

I was around in 2000; I remember "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" coming out (and have been revisiting the coverage from then due to many cinemas choosing to show it for the upcoming Chinese New Year). Though wuxia was by then a near-century long tradition in literature, film and TV, and draws on much older traditions in literature and live theatre, the film was treated as if it had newly invented all the tropes of the genre by anglophone critics and the general public who either hadn't seen any wuxia or related genres before or couldn't remember when East Asian films had last flirted with mainstream recognition in these countries, during the kung fu and ninja crazes of the '70s and '80s.

At least then the topes were recognised as being a Chinese tradition in the general sense (rather than ones most typical of Japan being misattributed to Korea), though to nitpick they were largely developed in filmic form in Taiwan and Hong Kong, while the genre had been banned in the mainland until recently.

And it was considered astounding and unprecedented, and a new dawn for non-English-language media, that it was breaking out of the foreign-language ghetto in awards ceremonies. When, if one actually looks at the records, Japanese films had been doing that in the early 1950s, with no Internet to help them and much less international voters. And if there was a relatively mainstream acceptance of subtitles and all non-white casts then, it didn't last the half-century in between.

"Crouching Tiger", "Parasite" and "Squid Game" are all very good; I'm not denying that and don't resent the appreciation they've had. But they're not unique, not one of a kind, not so above anything else produced in Asia before or since to be the only live-action from the world's largest and most inhabited continent worth seeing; they just managed to be the right thing at the right time with the right marketing to catch on, while other similarly excellent works did not.

Treating them as an unprecedented or the pinnacle of their genres helps to get them lots of viewers at the time, but the legacy of that is that once people have seen them they can feel that they've "done" that genre, or even that country, region or continent's whole filmic output, and don't need to see anything from before or since. After "Crouching Tiger", two Steven Chow films and Zhang Yimou's wuxia trilogy got similar attention and distribution on the back of it, but after that, with none being a hit on the level of "Crouching Tiger", the interest of distributors and the media, and therefore most of the public, dried up for about 15 years (but not for me, who had only what I could get to see at an annual festival to get a fix in cinemas in between).

I can let cinemas off the hook that, though there are other Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong films, yes, it is the Year of the Tiger, and this is the best-known Chinese at all film with "tiger" in the title. But, then, where was "Dragon Inn" when it was the Year of the Dragon, "Iron Monkey" in the Year of the Monkey, "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" in that of the Snake? Or anything Korean, as it's Korean New Year as well?

I suppose the good thing now is that these breakout crazes seem to be have gone from happening about every 50 to every 15 to every 2 years, so there's more being added to the library of works that are considered to exist, though their predecessors remain unacknowledged. But, because I've lived through this before, I think I'm subconsciously so fearful that it's all going to disappear again that it stops me from just enjoying it now while I can.

I guess it's up to me to add, as so far no one else has thought it worth mentioning in the news articles and comments on them on a site which covers Japanese as well as Korean media, that the Japanese movie "Drive My Car" was not only nominated, like "Squid Game" in its own right and Lee Jung Jae were, but WON in its category of Best Picture – Non-English Language! It's still playing in some cinemas in some countries, including the US and UK (while also being available at home as a virtual cinema release), and is still to be released in cinemas in some others.

I've accepted that the writers of news on MDL don't give the same prominence to news about Japanese media (or, to be fair, that of South East Asia) compared to news about Korean and Chinese-language media, but to see one win being front-page news and another not even mentioned does seem a new level of discrepancy. (Yes, Oh Young Soo's win is the more significant of the two as it's a first for a Korean actor, while "Drive My Car" might not be the first for a Japanese movie, but the lack of even a mention of it is rather rubbed in when Korean nominations get mentions but not a Japanese win. And, yes, if I want this news to be covered, maybe I should write my own articles about it, as they're only written voluntarily, by people writing about what they want to, so they have no responsibility to be impartial in what they choose to cover. And maybe I will.)

It's now also available online in the UK and Ireland as a virtual cinema release (it still has dates coming up in some real ones, too):
https://www.modernfilms.com/drivemycar/watch

I don't think it's available virtually in Northern America yet, but maybe it will be there in a few weeks' time (as the real theatrical release date there was also later).

"Drive My Car" is currently exclusive to physical cinemas/theatres. I imagine that the Japanese rights holders won't allow it online at all till after the Japanese home video release, because if it gets online it's likely to be pirated and that will affect home video sales in Japan, which is how Japanese movies really make their money back and is what their rights holders care about.

In contrast, the rights holders of Hamaguchi's other 2021 movie, "Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy", aren't at all as protective of it (maybe because it doesn't have A-list stars, so it's likely to only be seen by people who care enough about movies to not pirate them, but, again, that's just my theorising). That's been available online as part of many festivals; right now, it's available in virtual theatres in Northern America as well as physical ones:
https://www.filmmovement.com/wheel-of-fortune-and-fantasy#playing

And in the UK it's among a few Japanese movies available online in Cambridge Film Festival from 21 November – 5 December:
https://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/strands/japan-2021

It will be released nationally in UK and Irish cinemas on 11 February, conceivably in virtual as well as physical ones (as distributor Modern Films have done virtual cinema releases for "Family Romance, LLC
" and "The Witches of the Orient", and the rights holders are evidently allowing those for this movie):
https://www.modernfilms.com/wheeloffortuneandfantasy

This is now out in cinemas in the United States! Only a few locations so far, but more could be added – especially if people let movie theatres near them know that they want to see it.

https://www.elevenarts.net/live-action/gift-of-fire

As well as other Hamaguchi movies (the most recent two of which, "Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy" and "Drive My Car", are currently getting released in cinemas in many countries worldwide), you might want to look into the others by the same director of photography:
https://www.allcinema.net/person/802606

Japanese databases have the most comprehensive staff information for Japanese productions, but once you know the Japanese titles you can copy and paste them to search for them at http://www.themoviedb.org https://www.justwatch.com and MDL to see if those sites have anything on how to see the movies.

It's playing in London on 26 November, as part of a Hamaguchi retrospective:
https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2021/close-up-on-ry-suke-hamaguchi/

This is showing in London on 27 November:
https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2021/close-up-on-ry-suke-hamaguchi/

This is showing in London on 27 November:
https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2021/close-up-on-ry-suke-hamaguchi/

This is showing in London on 27 November:
https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/film_programmes/2021/close-up-on-ry-suke-hamaguchi/