The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2025 at Showroom Cinema

This year’s Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme tackles weighty subject matter as it considers Justice, Justification and Judgement in Japanese Cinema. The annual survey of Japanese film presents a series of contemporary titles along with a few hidden classics, placing the films in conversation with each other in order to provide room for thought, debate and insight into the wider Japanese culture.

The principle of justice provides almost infinite subject matter of course. From abuse of power, to false accusations, wrongful convictions and violation of human rights, the narratives are the stuff much of cinema is built on. The films selected touch on such serious subject matter, there is Bushido (Sun 9 Feb), Shiraishi Kazuya’s tale of an unemployed samurai chased out of his previous life for a crime he did not commit, and The Inugami Family (Sun 23 Feb), a 1976 film about a squabble for inheritance that turns murderous.

But the theme of justice, justification and judgement does not preclude more lighthearted fare.

But the theme of justice, justification and judgement does not preclude more lighthearted fare. For example, Take Masaharu’s We Make Antiques! (Tue 11 Feb) centres on an opportunistic antiques dealer and an impoverished potter who aim to make a fortune by fooling an authenticator who has wronged them in the past. Lighthearted 1951 comedy Carmen Comes Home (Fri 28 Feb) explores shifting moral attitudes in post-war japan as an artistic dancer shocks the residents of her home town. Director Yamashita Nobuhiro’s Let’s Go Karaoke! (Tue 25 Feb) finds laughs in the moral conundrum of a young choir leader tasked with helping a tone deaf yakuza lieutenant win a karaoke contest.

Other titles draw from currents in contemporary Japanese society, where more filmmakers have begun to voice their opinions on issues of social justice, racism, and gender inequality. Sotoyama Bunji’s Tea Friends (Fri 21 Feb) was inspired by a real-life prostitution club bust in 2013, and depicts a service which provides elderly “tea girls” to lonely old men, as both call girl and client find companionship. There’s a rare and empathetic focus on debilitating PMS in All the Long Nights (Sun 16 Feb), while Ichiko explores poverty and abuse as man tries to track down his missing fiancée, only to discover her heart-wrenching past.