Combining linguistics, domesticity and multiculturalism, the film stars one of the greatest actresses of the country, Sridevi, known for her superior dancing and dramatic skills, who appeared in more than 200 films before tragically dying in a drowning incident, last year.

In fact, this was the comeback film of the superstar, who had taken a 15-year hiatus to focus on her domestic life and bringing up her two daughters.

Directed by Gauri Shinde, “English Vinglish”, with English subtitles, centres around Shashi, a housewife and home-maker who is happy looking after her family, and making “laddus”, Indian traditional sweets. She is not too bothered about her lack of English-speaking skills despite the digs her husband and family make about that.

Things change, when she goes to New York, to help in the marriage of her niece, and finds herself in many embarrassing situations due to not knowing the English language. That’s when she decides to enrol for a short English-speaking course in the city. Shashi meets a bunch of lively, multiracial personalities, including a Pakistani cab driver, a Mexican nanny, a closeted African and a Frenchman who starts getting attracted to her. They love her innocent, effervescent personality, and have lots of fun together.

She is confused by the Frenchman’s attentions, though it raises her selfworth.

That’s when her family joins her in New York for the wedding. They are surprised by Shashi’s newly acquired English-language skills, and even more, by her impressive “English” toast to the wedding-couple.

The film, with its lively scenes and vibrant energy, pleased audiences around the world, starting with the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival. It won the Popular prize, and was a huge boxoffice hit, rocketing rookie Shinde, who was formerly in advertising, to the big time.

Amitabh Bachchan guest stars.

The RCB Film Club’s 2019 Movie Series is supported by the Embassy of India, who will host a reception after the screening with Indian wines and snacks. Newly arrived Indian ambassador Suchitra Durai will introduce the film.

For reservations, email: rcbfilmclub@rivercity.co.th or visit http://www.RiverCitybangkok.com.

The RCB boatservice leaves Saphan Taksin Pier at 3.30pm returning at 7pm. Contact the concierge counter on the first floor.

When you reserve seats for the film, indicate if you will need the RCB boat service

The film will also be available on HBO GO via AIS Play and AIS Playbox..

Starring Jeffrey Wright, the film is directed by Madeleine Sackler and written by Stephen Belber.

O G follows Louis (Wright), once the head of a prominent prison gang, in the final weeks of his 24-year sentence. His impending release is upended when he takes new arrival Beecher (Theothus Carter), who is being courted by gang leadership, under his wing. Coming to grips with the indelibility of his crime and the challenge of reentering society, Louis finds his freedom hanging in the balance as he struggles to save Beecher.

Also starring Theothus Carter and William Fichtner (“Crash”), OG premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, where Wright won the award for Best Actor in a US Narrative Feature Film. It was filmed over a five-week period at Indiana’s maximum-security Pendleton Correctional Facility – an active prison with several of the incarcerated men and prison staff appearing as first-time actors.

O G takes an intimate and unflinching look at the journey of one man at the precipice of freedom.

Director Madeleine Sackler describes the inspiration behind the film’s uniquely realistic approach, nothing, “There have been so many prison films that it’s become a genre of its own. To me, when a type of story becomes a genre, it can lose its uniqueness or its specificity in the storytelling.

“My goal was to disregard the prison genre and start from scratch, starting with one character, a man preparing to leave after many years behind bars. To do that as authentically as possible, to truly understand and portray that experience, I wanted to make the film in close collaboration with people going through the experience themselves, so I started calling different departments of correction around the country. And I was very lucky when the state of Indiana called me back.

“This film wouldn’t be what it is if we hadn’t made it as a collaboration with the prison and with hundreds of men incarcerated there. And to have two films come out of the experience, one fiction and one nonfiction, is very exciting. We were able to explore many different themes.”

For Wright, filming inside an active prison was a unique experience and helped him step inside his character. He explains, “It was absolutely necessary for me to wrap my head and my body around who this character was and what the story was that we were trying to tell. It’s a pretty informative place. It’s an affecting place. There’s an energy inside that place unlike no other, no other. It’s heavy, it’s kind of laden with trauma. It’s just molecularly heavy inside, and it certainly informed our understanding of the story, of the issues, and in my case, the character that I was playing.”

Sackler describes her introduction to Theothus Carter, saying, “His audition was incredible. We were watching hundreds of people in one week, and you can’t imagine the array of men who are incarcerated, and the talent and depth that they bring to the dialogue. There’s just no replacement for the real way that people move and interact and talk. And then Theothus came in, and he just blew me and the casting director away. And then he worked harder than anyone else.”

Wright says, “Theothus was all business, and he has a force to him. He has capabilities that we see through this film, that he had never tapped into in a way as constructive as this, perhaps in his lifetime.”

After the screenplay for O G had been developed and Sackler was prepping to shoot the film, she began collaborating with 13 men incarcerated at the facility on a nonfiction film. In “It’s A Hard Truth Ain’t It”, codirected by Sackler and those men, several of whom were also first-time actors, they study filmmaking as a vehicle to explore their memories and examine how they ended up with decades-long sentences. Animated sequences by Yoni Goodman (“Waltz with Bashir”) bring their stories to life.

“In a way, O G and “It’s A Hard Truth Ain’t It” are two different sides of the same coin. In O G, Louis is preparing to leave prison after 24 years of incarceration. In “It’s A Hard Truth Ain’t It”, the men look deeper into the paths that got them to prison in the first place. In that sense, neither film is about being in prison, but something deeper,” says Sackler.

Director Chayanop Boonprakob has a thing about imperfect characters his directorial debut “Suckseed Huay Khan Thep” focused on a group of high-school boys who formed a band despite having no talent for music. His second movie “May Nai Fai Raeng Frer” (“May Who?”) was a romantic comedy that again centred on a high-school boy who loved drawing cartoons but was too shy to talk about his hobby because he was convinced his drawings were awful.

Now, for his third outing, “Friend Zone Rawang Sinsud Thang Phuan” (“Friend Zone”), which goes on general release today, the director is stepping out from his comfort zone and swapping teen comedy for a romantic comedy about young adults. The main character Palm (Naphat Siangsomboon) is a handsome flight attendant who has been in love with his best friend Gink (Pimchanok Leuvisadpaibul) for more than a decade. The pair has kept their relationship purely platonic and each of them is dating someone else. However, as soon as either of them faces trouble in love, they automatically turn to each other. But Palm’s kindness is a problem for Gink’s boyfriend Ted (Jason Young). So it comes as something of a surprise to Palm when Gink asks him – “Have you wondered… what if we were an item?” but also raises his hopes that the two might finally became an item.

From left: Benjamin Joseph Varney, Naphat, Nutthasit Kotimanuswanich and Sukhapat Lohwacharin

From the tagline and trailer, “Friend Zone” appears to be just another feel good comedy from GDH, a formula that has sent the studio and its predecessor GTH to success at the box office. Yet “Friend Zone” has something more, with Chayanop’s talent for comedy making it a truly enjoyable movie.

The audience who watched the premiere on Monday was full of praise for the comedy, which though crazy was also genuinely funny. The chemistry between the two protagonists and the cast added to the entertainment and make “Friend Zone” the perfect movie to watch on Valentine’s Day.

The director says his lead character is inevitably a loser, enough though it might not be immediately obvious. Palm, he points out, might look perfect but Gink is his flaw, as he is constantly waiting for her to say yes and cross the line from friend to lovers.

“Personally I think the term ‘loser’ means having an imperfection in one’s life and we feel inferior because of it. I like imperfection in a person, I appreciate and accept it and don’t think it’s humiliating to show our true selves instead of opting to show how cool we are,” he says.

The relationship between a longtime friend Palm (Naphat Siangsomboon) and Gink (Pimchanok Leuvisadpaibul) is put to the test and they have to choose between being best friends forever or becoming lovers.

It’s the first time Chayanop has worked with the talented Pimchanok, who was praised for her ability to carry the whole story in the movie “Sing Lek Lek Thee Riak Wa Ruk”, and his second collaboration with Naphat, with whom he worked on the omnibus “Pohn Jak Fah” (“The Gift”)

The idea for the story was sparked when Chayanop attended a scriptwriting workshop held for trainees at GDH Studios. He was already a director but asked to participate to sharpen his skills. “Friend Zone” was the homework he submitted to trainers Jira Maligool and Vanridee Pongsittisak, both of them behind the success of GDH movies.

And just like with his previous films, it is inspired from his own experience.

Gink and her boyfriend Ted (Jason Young) and her best friend Palm (Naphat).

“We all have awkward relationships with our close friends, especially when they are of the opposite sex,” he says.

And despite working as a flight attendant for Thai Airways before Jira offered him the job of directing “Suck Seed” and Naphat’s work, the sponsorship from Thai Airways, he says, is pure coincidence.

“I was infused with a strange happiness when we shot the scenes on the plane. It reminded me of when I worked in the catering preparing meals for passengers,” he says.

The focus, however, remains firmly on Gink and Palm as they try to find out what her boyfriend is hiding during his travels to Hong Kong, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to work on a special project of recording a song covered by lovely vocalists in each country in a different language.

The original idea was to make both Palm and Gink flight attendants but was changed to Gink being the manager of an actor and her boyfriend, a famous music producer.

Director Chayanop Boonprakob

Chayanop is quick to admit that inviting singers from different countries for the soundtrack is a strategy designed to expand the market, even though GDH movies are already well known in the region. He adds that he enjoyed the experience of working with different teams in the countries where some of the scenes were shot.

“I am interested in the diversity of our neighbours and this tactic has never been used in a Thai movie before,” he says.

The highlight takes place in Hong Kong when the couple is riding a doubledecker bus and a crying Gink reaches and grabs hold of one of the neon lights where she remains hanging as the bus drives away. Fortunately, it comes back to collect her. Shooting at Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon was less easy, as permission was hard to obtain.

But it’s the comedy rather than the romance that really makes the film and this ranges from gags to the dia¬logue and situations, drawing the audience to laugh even in the muchhated tiein product scenes.

The chemistry between the two protagonists and the dialogue are convincing enough for the audience to believe that the two are friends in real life. That proved a relief and over¬came initial concerns about the cast¬ing, especially of Naphat who’s a rel¬ative newcomer.

“He was inexperienced when we worked on ‘The Gift’ but he goes all out to do his best and sometimes that backfires. After ‘The Gift’, he worked in some TV dramas where he received help from director Yuthtana Lopanpaibul in acting more naturally and with better diction,” says the director.

Pimchanok once again shows her talent for making audiences laugh and cry. And even though Gink can be annoying at times, they believe in and love her. Her blunt and impulsive character might well remind viewers of the Korean romantic comedy classic “My Sassy Girl” but Pimchanok’s skill makes it obvious why Palm has been in love with her for 10 years.

“Pimchanok pays a lot of attention to detail and can play whatever I ask her to do,” he says.

The other actors are also well matched to their characters with Jason Young a good fit for Gink’s boyfriend and Nutthasit Kotimanuswanich, Benjamin Joseph Varney and Sukhapat Lohwacharin, as Palm and Gink’s friends, totally credible.

The guest singers from different countries – Joyce Chu Zhu Ai from Malaysia, Phyu Phyu Kyaw Thein, often referred to as the Lady Gaga of Myanmar, and Phonesavanh Inthavong from Laos also make a solid contribution.

And with the movie shot in different countries, Chayanop confirms it’s the toughest work he’s ever undertaken.

“The production scale is much than larger but shooting overseas has given me so much experience,” he says, adding that he is more than ready to make another movie, this time with a musical theme.

“Perhaps about the lives of families and teachers,” he says, adding that both his parents are teachers.

“The idea always begins from what we like as a writer and I always choose a story that I enjoy and want to see on the big screen,” says the director.

A collaboration between two of the best filmmakers working today –James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez – “Alita: Battle Angel”, which opens today, is an adaptation of Yukito Kishiro’s popular manga of the same name.

The story is set in a devastated future world where society is split between the haves, who exist on the shining city of Zalem, floating above the Earth’s surface, and the havenots, who must eke out a hard-scrabble living in the Iron City, a place where Zalem dumps its garbage. It’s here that cyborg scientist Dr Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) discovers the frame of a mechanoid young woman. As Alita (Rosa Salazar) figures out who she really is and what she’s meant for, the world will never be the same again.

Keean Johnson plays Hugo, the young man who becomes an important part of Alita’s life. Struggling with his own quest to better his life, Hugo has the street smarts to help her cope with a confusing world but might not be as prepared as he thinks for everything that surrounds Alita. Johnson makes his film debut in “Battle Angel”, and here talks about auditioning and getting to do some of his own stunts.

How did you first get involved in Alita? Was it just a standard audition? Was it something that you found out about?

I first heard about this from my agent in December 2015 and I got called to go in. I went in, read for the role. And I didn’t hear anything for three or four months until I got a call from my manager. They said, “Robert really likes your tape”. And they told me he’d like to meet me. I met with Robert the first time, and I was so incredibly nervous. He seemed to think that I did a good job despite that. Then I came in for a second meeting with Robert and this time I thought, ‘okay, I met the guy. Now I can really show him without being nervous at all.’ And the second audition went really great. A month later I was told I’d go to Austin, and going to test for the role with Rosa. So, I auditioned. I put my best foot forward. Rosa and I hit it off right away, and I think Robert and I just clicked and it worked out: I was in Alita!

How did you react then when you actually got the part?

I had to wait for 36 days, I think. The most agonising email refreshing, every hour on the hour. I got an email from Robert and the subject said, “Guess What?” and then in the body was a photo of Yukito Kishiro’s Alita and it was the moment where Hugo is kissed by Alita. Finally I got the call and was on a flight within five or six days, ready to work for five months.

Who is Hugo and sort of how does he fit into the story?

Hugo’s a kid who’s been torn apart by Iron City for years and he’s learned how to adapt, how to actually thrive there. But all he wants to do is get out and when he meets Alita, he sees a moment where this place becomes interesting for once.

From left: Rosa Salazar, Keean, Jorge Lendeborg Jr and Lara Condor

What was it about him that appealed to you? And did you look for something you could add to him?

Hugo comes across as this tough, street smart, doesn’t-need-anyone type of guy. But he’s very vulnerable. think he hasn’t been able to show it to anyone in his life until he finally meets Alita, someone who loves him just the way he is. He doesn’t have to put on a face or put up a front.

You said that you and Rosa found a fairly easy chemistry. How was it working with her and was that bond the two characters share fairly easy to find?

The very first time I met her when we were testing, I was so nervous. And I think that the second I met her, she just came out with open arms and we immediately became friends from the first take that we did. Then when I got the part, we thought it was really important to spend time off set with each other as well, to get to know each other. And we really bonded.

Did you have to get used to her motion capture gear?

It was definitely interesting to get used to the facial camera, because it protruded a foot from her face. So, doing any sort of kissing scenes or anything like that, you always had to be aware of this huge, metal fist coming right at your face!

You also worked Christoph Waltz. Was it intimidating working with a two-time Oscar winner?

When you think of him as Christoph Waltz, the extraordinary Oscar winning actor, he is that guy, but he’s not that guy. You meet him and he’s instantly just another actor doing his job. Every single person was incredible. Jennifer Connelly. Ed Skrein, Mahershala Ali, they were all just people who love to act. This being my first film, it was so cool to see people who have been doing it half their lives and are still just so in love with it.

Did they let you do much stunt work? Any bumps or bruises?

I was able to do a few stunts. I grew up as a dancer, so my physicality is strong. When I was training with Garrett Warren and Steve Brown from stunts, I said, “I would love to try to do any stunts.” They said, “we’ll definitely see if you can do a few runs of certain things”. And I was able to do a few runs of the parkour stunts. There’s a scene with me and Ed Skrein and I was actually able to do a few of the stunts there. Fell a few times. Got some good scratches.

What are you hoping people take away from the movie?

I think the people at Weta and the people who are creating the world of Alita are truly making something that hasn’t been done before. And on top of that, it’s just an epic love story between two young kids. So I think everyone will be able to relate to that. And then even further it’s about a father figure trying to protect someone he calls his daughter.

One of the biggest platforms for international films in Europe, the International Film Festival Rotterdam wrapped its 48th edition last Saturday with the screening of “The Hummingbird Project” by Canadian director Kim Nguyen.

The previous evening, the festival jury – which included Thai filmmaker and Singapore International Film Festival programme director Pimpaka Towira – announced the winners of all the awards, giving the Tiger Award to Chinese film “Present.Perfect.” by female Chinese filmmaker Zhu Shangze and the Special Jury Award to Serbian filmmaker Ena Sendijarevic for her film “Take Me Somewhere Nice”.

Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, right, was in Rotterdam to present his latest documentary “BNK48: Girls Don’t Cry”. 

The Portuguese film “Around the World When You Were My Age” made by Japanese-Portuguese female filmmaker Aya Koretzky won the Bright Future Award for Best Film in Bright Future Competition.

One of the other winners at Rotterdam was “Last Night I Saw You Smiling”, a Cambodian feature documentary by Kavich Neang, which won the NETPAC Award and became the first Cambodian film ever to be recognised by the festival.

One of the few homegrown filmmakers from Cambodia to bring his work to an international audience, Kavich Neang made a name for himself with his 2013 documentary “Where I Go”, which was screened at Singapore International Film Festival. His 2015 short “Three Wheels” had its world premiere at Busan International Film Festival 2015 in competition, and was shown at several other events. Today, he is building on the success of his first outings with his first feature film project “The White Building”. Before starting on this international coproduction though, he is concentrating on his latest documentary “Last Night I Saw You Smiling”. It was filmed at The White Building, a place where he and his family lived until they and all the other tenants were forced out when it was bought by a Japanese company and finally demolished in July 2017.

“My family moved to live in this building in 1990, a few years after the Khmer Rouge era,” Kavich tells XP. “My father formerly lived outside the capital. At that time, the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts wanted to rebuild our culture, so they invited all the artists who had survived the Khmer Rouge to live in Phnom Penh. My father was a sculptor. He brought my mother to Phnom Penh and my brother and I were born there. I grew up seeing artists working in the White Building.”

Cambodian filmmaker Kavich Neang, right, won the NETPAC Award from the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019 for his documentary “Last Night I Saw You Smiling”. Photo also shows festival programmer Muge Demir, centre, and Pimpaka Towira, left, Thai filmmaker and jury member of the Tiger Competition. 

Constructed in 1963 to a plan drawn by Lu Ban Hap, a Khmer architect and Russian-French engineer Vladimir Bodiansky under the supervision of well-known state architect Vann Molyvann, the White Building was originally designed for low income families. After the forced evacuation of Phnom Penh citizens by the Khmer Rouge in 1975, the building fell into a state of disrepair. Later and despite the many artists that came to live there, it became infamous for the poverty of the people living there and drug abuse. The documentary dwells on the tenants, many of them artists.

“My neighbour taught me Cambodian traditional dance and music. When I was young, I would hear music and see the artists perform, After school, I visited him, and he asked me if I wanted to learn Cambodian traditional dance,” says Kavich with a sad smile.

Last Night I Saw You Smiling

In “Last Night I Saw You Smiling”, we see his family and his neighbours, many of whom had lived in the building for more than 30 years, saying that their eviction felt just like the day when the Khmer Rouge forced everybody in Phnom Penh to leave the city.

Kavich had planned to make a feature film about people living in the White Building, but with the apartment block about to be demolished, he decided to film it as a final memory. “I started writing my first fiction film in 2016. It is about the White Building. But finding funding took so long that we had to wait. We didn’t expect that the building would be demolished, so my team and myself decided to film this documentary. The most important thing in my head for this project was to capture everything that I could because I knew that the building would be empty soon, and then it would be gone for good. I wanted to capture every moment of it. I want to make this film more about my memory, and show the connection between me and the building,” he says.

Thai artist and filmmaker Taiki Sakpisit’s latest short “The Mental Traveller” was screened in the festival’s Ammodo Tiger Short Competition. In this experimental film, which explores the mental state of the country, Taiki turns his camera on five men in a psychiatric ward.

Kavich filmed his building from May 2017 until August of the same year. “The filming process was three months, and we got between 40 and 60 hours of footage. We got some funding and then we hired a French editor to edit them.”

That person was French editor Felix Rehm, who also edited the award winning Indian film “Village Rockstar”.

“I was in Paris and I couldn’t find any editor in Phnom Penh. We needed someone with an outsider’s perspective. I lived in the White Building for too long, so I needed someone with a fresh eye to edit the film. We found an editor in Paris and showed him the footage and he liked it, so that’s how we came to work together,” Kavich explains.

“I was very happy to show this film in Rotterdam. It’s an important festival,” Kavich says, adding that it was also the first time he had seen the final images of the place where he grew up on the big screen. “It was quite an emotional experience. The memories flooded back. I was happy to show the film to the audience in Rotterdam and pleased that they felt the documentary connected with their own memories of where they grew up.”

Also presented at the International Film Festival Rotterdam was the Thai film “Manta Ray” by Phuttiphong Aroonpheng, which has been travelling on the festival circuit since premiering in Venice last year. Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, who came to Rotterdam six years ago to screen his first feature film “36” was back for the European premiere of his latest documentary feature “BNK48: Girls Don’t Cry”, which had a successful four screenings and drew fans of the idol group from other cities in Europe.

Thai artist Taiki Sakpisit was in Rotterdam for the first time with his experimental short “The Mental Traveller”, which was screened in the Ammodo Tiger Short Film Competition. Tulapop Saenjaroen’s “A Room with a Coconut View”, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival last year and has enjoyed subsequent successful screenings on the circuit, was shown in the Perspective section. Cambodian short “A Million Years” by female filmmaker Danech San, which premiered at the 2018 Busan International Film Festival, travelled to Rotterdam for the Voices section and Korakrit Arunanondchai returned to Rotterdam with his latest work “No history in a room filled with people with funny names 5” in Bright Future section, which features footage from the Tham Luang cave rescue.

Start the viewing with Netflix’s original romantic Korean drama “Romance is a Bonus Book” starring Lee Jongsuk as the youngest editorinchief ever at his publishing company who becomes caught up in the life of a former copywriter desperate for a job (Lee Nayoung). Four episodes are now streaming on Netflix and with two new episodes added every week.

Also showing is the romantic comedy from Taiwan “Dear Ex”, which has been well received across Asia since its debut at the Taipei Film Festival. It has also won awards for Best Actress at the Golden Horse Awards, Best Feature Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Media Recommendation at the Taipei Film Festival as well as Best Director at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival 2018.

The movie follows three people who are linked by fate because of love and family. Adolescent Song Chengxi loses his father to cancer, but instead of having time to mourn, finds himself caught in a feud between his widowed mother Liu Sanlian and his father’s gay lover Jay. As Liu fights Jay for Song’s insurance money, Chengxi gradually learns that what holds both Liu and Jay back is not the money, but the weight of the loving memories they each have with his father.

On a more classic note is “The Notebook” the romantic drama based on Nicholas Sparks’s bestselling novel. Starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, the film focuses on a poor yet passionate young man who falls in love with a rich young woman, giving her a sense of freedom, but they are soon separated because of their social differences. In a modern-day nursing home, an elderly man named Duke begins to read a love story from his notebook to a female fellow patient.

Another alltime classic romantic comedy is “My Best Friend’s Wedding”. Julianne Potter (Julia Roberts) receives a call from her lifelong friend Michael O’Neal (Dermot Mulroney) telling her he will marry a young college student Kimmy (Cameron Diaz). It’s the three weeks before Julian will turn 28 – the timeline both Julian and Michael made an agreement that if neither of them were married by the time they turned 28, they would marry each other. The call makes her realise that she loves her best friend and will do anything to bring him back.

Netflix has also selected one of Thailand’s most successful romantic comedies – “Rot Fai Fah Ma Ha Na Ther” (“Bangkok Traffic Love Story”. It tells the story of Mei Li (Cris Horwang), a thirtyyearold woman feeling desperate about being last among her friends to marry, and her relationship with Loong (Teeradaj Wongpuapan), an engineer working on the BTS Skytrain system.

Viewers can also enjoy the successful Korean series “My Love from the Star”, now remade in a Thai version and starring Nadech Kugimiya and Peeranee Kongthai. The original version starred Kim Sohyun as an alien who lands on Earth in 1609 during the Joseon Dynasty. Immortal, he continues to live as a young man and is waiting to return to his star when he becomes entangled in Songyi’s (Jeon Jihyun) crazy and unpredictable situations, and discovers she looks like the young girl he fell in love with in the Joseon era.

JAPANESE DIRECTOR Norihiro Koizumi has been busy in recent weeks, travelling from one Asian city to another to accompany the Japanese Film Festival, which is showing his “Chihayafuru” trilogy, a teenage romantic comedy in which the three protagonists are talented players of a traditional card game known as karuta. Although the first two parts were released a couple of years back and included on the festival’s programme, this is the first time viewers have been able to see them together with the latest “Chihayafuru Part 3”.

Japanese director Norihiro Koizumi brings his “Chihayafuru” trilogy to Thai audiences as part of the 2019 edition of the Japanese Film Festival.

This was the first time that all three parts were being shown continuously and tickets sold out fast as audiences, all of them fans of the Yuki Suetsugu manga on which the film is based, happily confined themselves to their seats for a straight six hours.

The manga, which made its debut in 2007 and is serialised in a popular magazine, tells the story of childhood friends Chihaya (Suzu Hiroze), Taichi (Shuhei Nomura) and Arata (Mackenyu Arata) bound by their passion for competitive karuta. They part ways after graduating from elementary school, but reunite in secondary school where they form the Karuta Club so they can compete in the national Karuta competition of which they are declared the winner.

The new film is set two years after the events of 2016’s “Chihayafuru Part 2” and follows the life of the titular character, Chihaya Ayase (Hirose) and her team as they traverse the final year of high school and get into the national tournament of the card game.

“Chihayafuru” Parts 1 and 2, were shown here two years ago as part of the festival and captured the hearts and minds of Thai manga fans.

Shuhei Nomura as Taichi

“I was impressed at the understanding of Japanese culture and by the number of people who had read the original comic. They also knew a lot about the actors who were portraying the characters and had even formed fan clubs,” says the 37-year-old director of his experience while touring with his trilogy from Beijing to Manila to Bangkok.

He credits destiny for his involvement with the story. “Only a few volumes had come out when I read it and asked for the rights from the publisher to make the movie. And they told me that someone else had already acquired those rights. Six years later, a producer contacted me and asked if I wanted to make a film about ‘Chihayafuru’,” he says.

“I was surprised because they already held the rights. It transpired that they didn’t know how to make the film so the producer asked if I could do it. He had no idea I had earlier contacted the publisher”.

Taichi, right, and his childhood friend Arata (Arata Mackenyu) who is talented in karuta.

Koizumi, whose directorial debut, 2006’s “Midnight Sun” grossed over a billion yen and was later picked up for a Hollywood adaptation starring Bella Thorne, says he was attracted to the story not because of the love triangle between the high school students, but the card game.

“Chihayafuru” focuses on Uta Karuta (Poetry Karuta), a card game in which 100 poems will be read and the players must race to find the card associated with the upcoming poem, which is often identified just by the first one or two syllables. This game is traditionally played on New Year’s Day. Competitive karuta is organised at various levels, with the Japan national championship tournament being held every January at the Shinto Omi shrine in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture. The game’s popularity has soared since the release of the first movie.

“A lot of tournaments are now held throughout the year but organisers are really struggling because of the high number of competitors wanting to take part. They struggle to find venues to accommodate the number of national players. Now, with more and more players coming from abroad, from France and even Thailand, they launched a World Series last year.”

Koizumi is quick to add that the game is not just about grabbing the card as fast as you can but identifying the meaning of the poem. That’s quite a task considering there are 100 poems and thus 100 meanings and he’s tried to make that point by having the poem and the story run in parallel in his movies.

In “Chihayafuru Part 2” Chihaya, (Suzu Hiroze), right, plays karuta with the reigning queen (Mayu Matsuoka) at the Master Karuta tournament for Women.

“It’s interesting that poems written 2,000 years ago convey the same emotions as we hear in today’s popular Japanese music. I found it interesting that the same things were being written 2,000 years apart and that made it easier to adapt to the culture of today,” he says.

The initial idea was to release just two films and shoot them both over the same period. The first episode had yet to be released when the producer started to ask Koizumi if he wanted to make part three. He agreed immediately.

In “Chihayafuru”, both Taichi and Arata fall for Chihaya, who is focused only on becoming the ace of karuta. When it comes to the movie, the director chooses to focus on Taichi rather than the main characters of Arata and Chihaya.

“Chihaya and Arata are the geniuses in karuta so they don’t really have a story to tell. I needed someone to whom the audience could relate, someone whose story would make the audience both cry and laugh,” he explains.

“Taichi is not talented. He is however good-looking and rich but while he’s the envy of others, he doesn’t have what he really wants –Chihaya and karuta,” he says.

Koizumi has also chosen to reconstruct the story and theme and make each part able to stand alone.

“There’s a completely different timeline going on so I had to carefully select the episodes that lend themselves to becoming a feature film that has a message, an opening, a climax and an ending. That was really complicated work”.

He has also vied away from the love triangle between the three protagonists, giving the films more of a sports feel and also choreographing the characters fighting during the game to be like the samuri fighting action.

“When I first saw karuta being played, I thought it was like samurai action. You have to move really fast to catch the card, which is not random, but before that you are really silent and still. When you strike out for the targeted card, it’s rather like the samurai taking out his sword and then snap, in seconds, somebody dies.”

Viewers don’t have to understand all the rules of karuta , Koizumi adds. “You just need to know that you have to take the card before the opponent. Most Japanese people don’t know how competitive karuta works. I had to choose what to explain and what could be left out.”

All three parts feature the same actors and booking them has been hard as they are rising stars much in demand. Actress Hirose has been in many recent films including Hirokazu Koreeda’s “Our Little Sister” and “The Third Murder” and “Let’s Go, Jets!”

“Hirose wasn’t famous at all when I cast her for the role, but she was clearly an up and coming star. She had charisma even though her acting was not really mature. So I was pretty sure she would be a major star within the next decade so we chose her for the main role,” he says.

“Shuhei was a child star so we knew he could act but what made him perfect for the part of Taichi was that he also had an inferiority complex.”

Mackenyu was initially turned down as a non-starter but refused to give up. “I said no a couple of times but he came back again and again because he really wanted this role. I gave it to him on the condition that he would really concentrate on this role and do nothing else while working on this project. He went to Awara in Fukui Prefecture, which is often called karuta city, learned karuta and even practised the Fukui accent. When he returned he was so good that we confirmed him in the role,” Koizumi says.

SHOWING SOON

“Chihayafuru Parts 1 to 3” will be screened during the Japanese Film Festival, which will travel to SFX Cinema Maya in Chiang Mai from Friday to February 10 then head South to SFX Cinema Central Festival Phuket from February 22 to 24.

Tickets cost Bt80. Find out more at http://www.SFCinemaCity.com.