Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2020: #78. Untitled Kiyoshi Kurosawa War Drama

Untitled Kiyoshi Kurosawa War Drama Project

Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa lets no moss gather, as he will be following his 2019 Uzbekistan set To the End of the Earth with an as-yet-titled war epic co-written by Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Happy Hour; Asako I & II). Yu Aoi of Birds Without Names and Kurosawa’s 2015 title Journey to the Shore, will play the lead in a project that will be filmed in 8K Super Hi-Vision. The drama is produced by C&I Entertainment, based in Tokyo. Kurosawa has been programmed in nearly every major world festival, but has received the most prominence in Cannes. His 1999 Charisma played Directors’ Fortnight while 2000’s Séance (a remake of Séance on a Wet Afternoon) won the FIPRESCI Prize in Un Certain Regard. 2002’s Bright Future competed in Cannes, while 2008’s Tokyo Sonata won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize. Kurosawa won the Directing Prize in Un Certain Regard in 2015 for Journey to the Shore and then was programmed there again in 2017 with Before We Vanish. He competed for the Golden Leopard in Locarno with 2013’s Real and he closed the 2019 Locarno Film Festival with To the Ends of the Earth. Kurosawa competed in Toronto’s Platform program in 2016 with Daguerrotype. He’s been regularly featured in Berlin’s sidebars as well, with 2016’s Creepy and 2017’s Foreboding most recently.

Gist: Hamaguchi, joined by his Happy Hour scribe Tadashi Nohara, crafts a conspiracy thriller in 1940 Kobe, Japan, where a merchant witnesses an event he tries to reveal to the world despite the protestations of his wife.

Release Date/Prediction: Kurosawa began production in October of 2019. Cannes seems to be his regular major haven so we anticipate he will either compete for the second time in Cannes or for the first time in Venice in 2020.