Japanese Academy Nominations
Thursday, January 28, 2021 at 10:15AM
NATHANIEL R in Asian cinema, Japan, Ken Watanabe, Naomi Kawase, Yoji Yamada

by Nathaniel R

Two of the nominees this year, a journalism mystery and a trans drama

Anyone have any theories as to why American theaters (pretend there's not a pandemic) so rarely get Japanese movies? Chinese, Indian, and South Korean movies hit the US quite regularly (on the coasts at least) but otherwise Asian movies don't seem to get much play in the US. Streaming sites appear to have the same preferences for Asian cinema (though you can add in Thai cinema to the mix there). We try to cover the Golden Horse Awards each year -- which honors Chinese language cinema -- but we realize we've never covered the Japanese Academy (now in their 44th year). That's surely because we've rarely heard of the movies or the stars. With Chinese cinema the titles and stars are often familiar to cinephiles. Theories?

Anyway, here are the nominees this year for the forthcoming March 19th ceremony in Tokyo. Three names -- two of which have been up for Oscars -- are familiar...

UPDATED WITH WINS (★) MARCH 19TH, 2021

Best Picture 

The Japanese Academy doesn't have a lot of categories but these five films are nominated in most of them.

 

Best Director

Naomi Kawase on set

 

 

While True Mothers didn't get a Best Picture nomination here it is Japan's submission to the Oscars this year... surely based on Naomi Kawase's international film festival favourite status.

Best Actress

33 year old star Masami Nagasaw (pictured here in THE CONFIDENCE MAN) is double-nominated this year

 

 

Best Actor 

Kazunari Ninomiya stars as a photographer in THE ASADAS

 

Here we have a cis male actor Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, former boy bander, playing a trans woman... which is no longer acceptable here in the US of course. But different countries have different political movements, social causes, and norms as well as timetables of progress ... that seems to be especially true on LGBTQ issues.

 

Best Supporting Actress

Best Supporting Actor  

Ken Watanabe in "FUKUSHIMA 50"

Ken Watanabe is familiar to US audiences of course via his Oscar nomination (The Last Samurai) and his Tony nomination (The King and I) and numerous famous English language movie appearances (Godzilla, Pokemon, Letters from Iwo Jima, and Chris Nolan movies)

On another note, how great is the film title The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese? It's a romance about a serial cheater whose wife hires an investigator to spy on him. 

Best Screenplay

Yoji Yamada, who is now 89 years old, previously wrote and directed the Oscar nominee Twilight Samurai (2002). He got the writing nomination at the Japanese Academy this year for his long running Tora San series, but not the directing nod. 

Best Animated Film

Outstanding Foreign Language Film

 

A litle repeat of last year's Oscar race right here.

 

 

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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