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At university, Masakazu Kaneko began experimenting with films, starting with 8mm and 18mm. At the Film School of Tokyo he took classes from Takahisa Zeze. In 2017 he made his first feature “The Albino’s Trees” which was screened in many international festivals. He continued with his second feature “Ring Wandering” which also brought him the attention of international critics and audiences.

While “Ring Wandering” is a blend of fantasy and drama, Kaneko’s new feature “River Returns” is more of a period drama. However, the story of two people from different social strata falling in love has a lot to say about social hierarchies and how they get in the way of human connection and cooperation.

In our interview, Masakazu Kaneko talks about the project’s inspirations, its relevance for the present and the importance of harmony.

What can you tell us about the inspiration for “River Returns”?

The movie...

On Tuesday, May 27, 2025, the Nippon Connection Film Festival in Frankfurt am Main will open its doors for the 25th time! For six days, the world’s largest festival for Japanese cinema will present a varied program with over 100 current short and feature-length films as well as around 70 cultural events, including concerts, workshops, lectures, and exhibitions. With over 10,000 tickets already sold in advance and numerous events sold out, as well as around 200 filmmakers and artists attending, another record-breaking festival appears to be in store. The full program and tickets are available at NipponConnection.com.

“What began as a student project in 2000 has developed into an internationally recognized meeting place for Japanese film and culture over the last 25 years. We are celebrating this anniversary with a program that impressively reflects the diversity, creativity and relevance of Japanese cinema.” – Marion Klomfass (Festival Director)

The festival will open on May 27 at 7:00 p.m.

After “The Albino’s Tree” (2016) and “Ring Wandering” (2021), director Masakazu Kaneko continues his dispute between humankind and nature.

River Returns is screening at Cinema at Sea

Set in 1958 during Japan’s economic boom, “River Returns” is a fantasy drama about a boy named Yucha, who lives in a mountain village together with his father and his grandmother. He learns about the tale of Oyu, whose fate caused the outbreak of many typhoons and floods that have damaged the village. Equipped with a wooden bowl that played in important role in Oyu’s life, the young boy begins a journey into the woods to meet her spirit and to save his family. In flashbacks, the fairytale-like narration tells about the love story of Oyu, who used to be a villager and fell in love with a woodcarver from the mountain tribe Kijiya. Their forbidden love caused sorrow that triggered the natural disasters.

Sean Hu’s “Ocean Elegy: The Tragedies of Mudan and Ryukyu,” a seven-years-in-the-making documentary exploring a pivotal 1870s incident that reshaped East Asian geopolitics, will world premiere as the opening film of Japan’s Cinema at Sea – Okinawa Pan-Pacific International Film Festival.

New Zealand director Miki Magasiva’s “Tinā” is set to close the festival with its Asian premiere. The drama, which marks Magasiva’s directorial debut, follows a Samoan mother (Anapela Polata’ivao) who finds healing through teaching music after losing her daughter in the Christchurch earthquake. The film has already gained attention at festivals including Hawaii, Palm Springs and Perth.

The competitive Pacific Film section features 10 films spanning multiple territories. Masakazu Kaneko’s “River Returns” (Japan) blends fantasy and tradition in a 1958-set drama about a boy’s spiritual journey to halt destructive typhoons. South Korean filmmaker Ryu Yeon-su makes her debut with “Boy in the Pool,” exploring childhood...

International finance, production and sales company Est N8 has been in talks with buyers at AFM on Indonesian horror thriller The Hole after acquiring international rights.

Hanung Bramantyo directed the story co-written with Haqi Achmad. The story blends noir with supernatural horror and is said to be in the vein of Seven, The Wailing, and Ringu.

Set in rural Indonesia, The Hole follows a police officer’s journey into darkness as he investigates a series of brutal murders targeting village officials. As he delves deeper, he uncovers sinister secrets about the victims that put him and his loved ones at risk.

Exclusive: Show Kasamatsu, one of the stars of Max’s acclaimed crime drama Tokyo Vice, has taken on new representatives at Brookside Artist Management and CAA.

Currently in its second season, Tokyo Vice follows Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort), a Western journalist working for a publication in Tokyo who takes on one of the city’s most powerful crime bosses. Also starring Ken Watanabe and Rachel Keller, the show executive produced by Michael Mann has Kasamatsu portraying Yakuza gang enforcer Akiro Sato.

Next up, the actor will be seen starring alongside Jacob Elordi in the TV adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which Justin Kurzel is helming for Prime Video Australia.

Prior to Tokyo Vice, Kasamatsu has been an in-demand actor in Japan across film and television. In addition to the series Love You as the World Ends, The Naked Director, and Followers, all...

Quite a weird year for Japanese cinema, since there was no definite masterpiece this year, in the fashion of “Shoplifters” for example, while short and mid-length movies seem to have been rising intently in quality, a tendency that actually extended to a number of Asian countries, including Korea. At the same time, the “issues” of Japanese cinema, particularly the lack of mid-budget films and the “Koreeda style” of filmmaking that usually results in invitations to (big) festivals continue to happen, and along with the #MeToo movement hitting the industry quite hard, resulted in a year for local productions that is by no means great. At the same time, however, the size of the industry in terms of number of productions still gave way to a number of titles to stand out, 20 of which are to be found here. This time, the main criteria, besides the always present diversity, is films...

Show Kasamatsu moved to Tokyo in 2011 to become an actor and has been genuinely engaged in his show business career from 2013.From 2018 to 2021, he appeared in 52 dramas. In 2019, he was in the first place among Japanese male actors by the number of movie and drama appearances respectively. He was also ranked No.1 in the Toyo Keizai’s ranking of “Unexpected Actors Most Supported by the Production Field Today”. He was selected by director Michael Mann to play the main character Sato in “Tokyo Vice” through an audition. This drama was co-produced by Wowow and HBO Max.

On the occasion of “Ring Wandering” screening at Fantasia Film Festival, we speak with him about the role of Sosuke, reading manga, how he picks his roles and other topics

“Ring Wandering” screened on Fantasia International Film Festival

What drew you in the role of Sosuke? How would you describe Sosuke as a person?...

Masakazu Kaneko was born in Tokyo in 1978. He entered the school of International Politics, Economics and Communication, Aoyama Gakuin University. During his time at university, he started to learn 8mm / 16mm filmmaking. After graduating from the university, he studied at the Film School of Tokyo. Then he directed six short films while working in the fields of TV commercials or films.

In 2016 Masakazu’s first directed-feature “The Albino’s Trees” was screened as an international premiere in the Beijing International Film Festival, China. In 2017 it was also screened in the 4th Figueira Film Art, Portugal and awarded the Best Feature, Best Direction, Best Picture. In the wake of winning a triple award, “The Albino’s Trees” was nominated for screenings in more than 20 international film festivals in 14 countries and achieved 20 awards worldwide, nine of which were Best Feature. “Ring Wandering” is his second feature film.

On the occasion of “Ring...

Back in the late 19th century, Japan started to modernize itself to catch up with the West and to raise its economic and military power. This effort however, had a significant impact to the country’s long lasting healthy ecosystem, with the extinction of the Japanese wolf being one of the consequences. Taking inspiration from this fact, Masakazu Kaneko pens and directs “Ring Wandering”, a rather interesting movie that unfolds on a number of levels.

“Ring Wandering” is screening on Fantasia International Film Festival

Sosuke is an aspiring manga artist, though for the moment he’s stuck doing heavy labor on construction jobs in central Tokyo. At the same time, he is trying to finish his manga about the battle of a hunter and a Japanese wolf taking place during the Russo-Japanese war. He is struggling however, particularly in drawing the animal, since no one has seen one for over a century.

Sosuke is a young manga artist who lives in central Tokyo. He has reached a dead end in his current work about a battle between a hunter and a Japanese wolf. He even attempts to look for traces of Japanese wolves in the mountains. One winter’s day at the construction site where he works part-time, Sosuke finds an animal skull and takes it home. Could it be a Japanese wolf’s skull? He goes back to the construction site at night to investigate further but meets Midori who is accidentally injured when looking for her dog. Spurred on by this meeting with Midori and her family, Sosuke gradually unearths the memories of the past war buried underground in Tokyo.

This is the second feature film for director Masakazu Kaneko following 2016’s The Albino’s Trees. He co-wrote the screenplay with Genki Yoshimura with a cast featuring Shô Kasamatsu (Mask...

Panaji, Nov 28 (Ians) Director Masakazu Kaneko’s Japanese film “Ring Wandering” (“Ringu Wandaringu”) took the top honour on the concluding day of the 52nd International Film Festival of India (Iffi) on Sunday, bagging the coveted Golden Peacock Award. The Japanese film is about an aspiring manga artist, who, while searching for bones he believes will […]...

Exclusive: The second Aca Cinema Project series, “Flash Forward: Debut Works and Recent Films by Notable Japanese Directors,” has set its lineup for a hybrid program that will run from December 3-23. Presented by the New York-based non-profit Japan Society and the Japanese government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, in collaboration with the Visual Industry Promotion Organization, the event will be comprised of 18 films streaming in North America on Japan Society’s Virtual Cinema hub, along with two in-person screenings on December 11 and 17.

Highlighting the early efforts of now-established contemporary filmmakers, the program takes a look at six of Japan’s well-known directors: Naomi Kawase, Miwa Nishikawa, Shuichi Okita, Junji Sakamoto, Akihiko Shiota and Masayuki Suo. Pairing each of their debuts with a recent work, the series presents two facets of their careers. (Scroll down for the full list.) Panel discussions will also be held with some of the filmmakers and available to stream worldwide.