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The impact Eminem’s “8 Mile” had seem to still sent ripples in the movie industry, with this time, a similar story being transferred in Japan through the titular school teacher. In the end, however, and despite some similarities, “Yukiko A.K.A” is actually quite different.

Yukiko A.K.A is screening at Asian Pop Up Cinema

Yukiko, a 29-year-old elementary school teacher in Tokyo, lives a rather normal life, dealing with her students and retaining a relationship with a fellow teacher. However, she is also disgruntled with her life, particularly when she realizes that she is not one among the favorite teachers in the school, while her relationship is not as fulfilling as she expects. As such, she channels her frustration in hip-hop, rapping at nights in a park along with some similar-minded friends. When she loses miserably in a rap fight, however, she realizes that she needs to make a change.

The impact Eminem’s “8 Mile” had seem to still sent ripples in the movie industry, with this time, a similar story being transferred in Japan through the titular school teacher. In the end, however, and despite some similarities, “Yukiko A.K.A” is actually quite different.

Yukiko A.K.A is screening at Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival

Yukiko, a 29-year-old elementary school teacher in Tokyo, lives a rather normal life, dealing with her students and retaining a relationship with a fellow teacher. However, she is also disgruntled with her life, particularly when she realizes that she is not one among the favorite teachers in the school, while her relationship is not as fulfilling as she expects. As such, she channels her frustration in hip-hop, rapping at nights in a park along with some similar-minded friends. When she loses miserably in a rap fight, however, she realizes that she needs to make a change.

Out of fear, out of the unknown, arises the irrational. As the paranoia of uncertainty runs amok, the responses trigged by individuals, whole communities, and even whole civilizations to clamber on to some sense of normality arouse our own perplexions; to have all we know as societies rejected and reduced to footnotes of “simpler times” produces nothing but extreme reverberations from all walks of life. When the world shutdown amidst Covid-19’s reckless rampage, the immediacy of the ordeal left its irreparable stain on the lives of all those it touched, not to mention all the lives it has thus claimed. Life became fleeting, time stood still, and the endless vacuum that sucked us all in spiraled out of control. It is the search for a new purpose that preoccupies Non’s (Rena Nounen) sophomore feature “Ribbon”, not so much as an existential yearning but as a means to stave...

Out of fear, out of the unknown, arises the irrational. As the paranoia of uncertainty runs amok, the responses trigged by individuals, whole communities, and even whole civilizations to clamber on to some sense of normality arouse our own perplexions; to have all we know as societies rejected and reduced to footnotes of “simpler times” produces nothing but extreme reverberations from all walks of life. When the world shutdown amidst Covid-19’s reckless rampage, the immediacy of the ordeal left its irreparable stain on the lives of all those it touched, not to mention all the lives it has thus claimed. Life became fleeting, time stood still, and the endless vacuum that sucked us all in spiraled out of control. It is the search for a new purpose that preoccupies Non’s (Rena Nounen) sophomore feature “Ribbon”, not so much as an existential yearning but as a means to stave...

In enigmatic romance “Asako I & II,” the willful heroine can’t choose between two lovers who look exactly the same. Japanese independent director Ryusuke Hamaguchi uses this rather unlikely premise to explore the mysteries of the heart. Catapulted straight to the main competition in Cannes without prior participation at other sections, the helmer’s ninth work boasts a momentous leap in his career. Yet, compared to his previous five-hour epic relationship drama “Happy Hour,” this is less ambitious and lacks the raw honesty or spellbinding intensity of that film.

Adapting a novel of the same title by Tomoka Shibasaki, Hamaguchi extols his source for a compelling representation of love as a mystic experience. However, what gets transferred to the screen becomes more like banal indecision.

When Asako (Erika Karata) encounters her first love Baku Torii (Masahiro Higashide) in her hometown Osaka, it’s staged like a fantasy sequence in...