Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Guzen to sozo)
A conscientious chronicler of the life of women in contemporary Japan, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi presents three loosely connected tales in which human relationships are influenced by unpredictable, fateful chance. Hamaguchi encloses the grand themes of love, revenge, and reconciliation into long, carefully written dialogues that criticize the problems faced by Japanese society today.
Screenplay: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Cinematography: Yukiko Iioka
Editing: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Cast: Kotone Furukawa, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Katsuki Mori, Fusako Urabe
Producer: Satoshi Takata
Production: Neopa, Fictive LLC
Ryusuke Hamaguchi
After graduating from the University of Tokyo, he worked in the film industry for a few years before entering the graduate film programme at the Tokyo University of the Arts. His graduation film, “Passion”, screened at San Sebastian Film Festival in 2008. His 317-minute “Happy Hour” premiered at Locarno and won awards at numerous film festivals. Asako I & II was selected for the competition at Cannes in 2018. He also wrote the screenplay for Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy, which won the Silver Lion at Venice in 2020.
MENA Premiere
Japan
Fiction, 2021, Color, 121 min
Japanese
Ryusuke Hamaguchi