Review of the Hamaguchi Ryusuke Collection box, on home video from December 1, 2022.
The cover of the Hamaguchi Ryusuke Collection.
PRODUCT SHEET
DIRECTOR: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
TITLES INCLUDED: Drive My Car, Happy Hour, Game of Destiny and Fantasy
DURATION: 179 mins, 317 mins, 121 mins
HOME VIDEO RELEASE DATE: December 1, 2022
HOME VIDEO DISTRIBUTION: CG Entertainment
REVIEW
HAPPY HOUR
Four friends, after a divorce hearing for one of them, decide to take a trip together, during which one of them disappears. The disappearance of the girl triggers a series of unexpected events…
THE GAME OF DESTINY AND IMAGINATION
Three movements depicting three female characters grappling with the dynamics of love and fate: an unexpected love triangle, a failed seductive game and an encounter resulting from a misunderstanding…
DRIVE MY CAR
The meeting and bond made up of subtle confidences between Kafuku, an actor and theater director who can’t get over the loss of his wife, and Misaki, a young driver of his car.
An unmissable signed box set CG Entertainment composed of three discs for as many great films Of Ryusuke Hamaguchi: obviously starting from Drive My Carone of the leading titles of last film season which a year ago won the well-deserved Oscar for best international film.
Drive My Car is the definitive consecration of Hamaguchiborn in 1978 and new top name in Japanese cinemaa delicate and poetic road movie on red Saab 900 flowing through the themes of loss, art, catharsis and friendship.
Together with him, the box set features Il Gioco del Destino e della Fantasia, a project developed and shot during the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced the author to take a break from filming Drive My Car. Originally born as a mosaic of seven stories about the “tricks” that chance generates in affections, relationships and loves, the film has become a minimalist triptych inspired by the form of the theater play and a dialogic game between the few actors on stage.
The third and final disc contains instead Happy hour, a mammoth tale about four thirty-year-old friends from the foggy seaside city of Kobe. At 5 hours and 17 minutes, Happy Hour is the longest Japanese film in history, an epic that reflects on the social and spiritual dynamics of contemporary Japan. Presented at the Locarno Film Festival in 2015 and winner of the award for best screenplay and best actresses to the four protagonists.
Luca Zanovello
Head of the Cinema section and of the newborn experiment of MaSeDomaniTV (our Youtube channel) Luca, with grace and an always calibrated ironic touch, made us passionate about the horror genre, making Monday chats about news on home video special, before becoming our correspondent from international festivals and one of the reference figures of MaSeDomani. You can also follow him on Outside The Black Hole
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