Passion Blu-ray
HomePassion Blu-ray
Posted September 15, 2023 06:00 PM by Webmaster
Film Movement has officially announced that it will release on Blu-ray Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's Passion (2008). The release is scheduled to arrive on the market on October 17.
Description: The debut feature from Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy), one of today's preeminent auteurs, examines a series of intersecting love triangles as only he can, plunging headlong into the exposed-nerve confessions and unrequited attachments among a group of thirtysomethings. It begins when a couple, Kaho (Aoba Kawai) and Tomoya (Ryuta Okamoto), announce their engagement to their friends over dinner, where it's also revealed the groom had an affair years earlier. While the two spend the evening apart, Tomoya follows his friends to the apartment of his former classmate (Fusako Urabe, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy), with whom he's in love, and are led into ever more vulnerable and shocking exchanges of emotional honesty. Though it was made as his student thesis project at Tokyo University of the Arts, Passion displays Hamaguchi's rich and nuanced insight into modern relationships while establishing the thematic foundations for his later films such as Happy Hour, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, and Drive My Car.
Special Fetaures:
After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Hamaguchi worked in the commercial film industry for a few years before entering the graduate program in film at Tokyo University of the Arts. He made his festival debut in 2008 with his graduation film Passion at San Sebastian and Tokyo FILMeX. Films include the Japan/Korea co-production film The Depths (2010) and a series of documentaries, The Tohoku Trilogy, co-directed by Ko Sakai, (Sound of the Waves, Voices from the Waves and Storytellers) from 2011 to 2013. The latter two films of the trilogy are composed of interviews of the victims of the devastating Great Japan Earthquake, and Storytellers is a documentary about research activity in Japanese regional folktales.
In 2015, his 317-minute feature film Happy Hour won major awards at numerous film festivals, starting at the Locarno Film Festival. His film Asako I & II was selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. He is also the screenwriter on Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Wife of a Spy, which won the Silver Lion at the 2020 Venice Film Festival. His film Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy premiered at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. His latest work, Drive My Car, premiered in Competition at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival where it was awarded the Best Screenplay Prize and the FIPRESCI International Critics' Prize.
Description: The debut feature from Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy), one of today's preeminent auteurs, examines a series of intersecting love triangles as only he can, plunging headlong into the exposed-nerve confessions and unrequited attachments among a group of thirtysomethings. It begins when a couple, Kaho (Aoba Kawai) and Tomoya (Ryuta Okamoto), announce their engagement to their friends over dinner, where it's also revealed the groom had an affair years earlier. While the two spend the evening apart, Tomoya follows his friends to the apartment of his former classmate (Fusako Urabe, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy), with whom he's in love, and are led into ever more vulnerable and shocking exchanges of emotional honesty. Though it was made as his student thesis project at Tokyo University of the Arts, Passion displays Hamaguchi's rich and nuanced insight into modern relationships while establishing the thematic foundations for his later films such as Happy Hour, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, and Drive My Car.
Special Fetaures:
- Introduction by director Ryusuke Hamaguchi
- "From Passion to Fortune" video essay by film and theatre writer Kenji Fujishima
After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Hamaguchi worked in the commercial film industry for a few years before entering the graduate program in film at Tokyo University of the Arts. He made his festival debut in 2008 with his graduation film Passion at San Sebastian and Tokyo FILMeX. Films include the Japan/Korea co-production film The Depths (2010) and a series of documentaries, The Tohoku Trilogy, co-directed by Ko Sakai, (Sound of the Waves, Voices from the Waves and Storytellers) from 2011 to 2013. The latter two films of the trilogy are composed of interviews of the victims of the devastating Great Japan Earthquake, and Storytellers is a documentary about research activity in Japanese regional folktales.
In 2015, his 317-minute feature film Happy Hour won major awards at numerous film festivals, starting at the Locarno Film Festival. His film Asako I & II was selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. He is also the screenwriter on Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Wife of a Spy, which won the Silver Lion at the 2020 Venice Film Festival. His film Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy premiered at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. His latest work, Drive My Car, premiered in Competition at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival where it was awarded the Best Screenplay Prize and the FIPRESCI International Critics' Prize.
