ALL UNDER THE MOON

An Enduring Outsider Romance

Venue(s): Laputa Asagaya
November 17 (Sun) to November 19 (Tue): 18:40; November 20 (Wed) to November 23 (Sat):17:10
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Theater website: www.laputa-jp.com/laputa/main/
Theater website: www.laputa-jp.com/laputa/program/dgj_selections/sc.html
Theater website: www.laputa-jp.com/laputa/program/dgj_selections/sakuhin4.html#31
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eet-P-fmrIo&t=4s
Tariff: General: ¥1,400, Students/Senior: ¥1,200, Members: ¥1,00, Wednesdays: ¥1,200

Title: 月はどっちに出ている (Tsuki wa dotchi ni dete iru)
Director: Yoichi Sai (崔洋一)
Duration: 109 min

The Directors Guild of Japan has curated a series of past critical successes and will be screening Yoichi Sai’s All Under the Moon (1993) for one week with English subtitles. Sai was the longtime president of the guild, and for many years, the most prominent Zainichi Korean working in Japanese film industry. He was also one of the first to explore marginalized identities and the lives of working-class immigrants with empathy and insight through his films, and the Kinema Junpo Best Film winner All Under the Moon is a classic example.

ALL UNDER THE MOON
Super 16mm film with English subtitles

Made in 1993 on Super 16mm, the film is based on a series of short films of the same title that previously aired on WOWOW. It follows a North Korean immigrant named Tadao (Goro Kishitani, perfectly cast), who works for a taxi company that is owned by another Korean immigrant whose dream is to build a golf course. Not surprisingly, Tadao suffers from chronic discrimination (and in Sai’s world, the more serious the taunts, the more hilarious). “I hate Koreans,” says one of his fellow drivers. “They're dirty, they stink and they're stingy. But you're all right. I like you. Lend me some money.”

When he finds himself falling for Connie (Ruby Moreno), a Filipino immigrant who works at his mother’s karaoke shop, Tadao discovers a different kind of discrimination — even from his mom, who forbids her son from marrying “outside his kind.” But Connie, who can speak Japanese fluently but is terribly homesick, encourages Tadao’s advances, and their relationship reveals a lot about Japan’s self-proclaimed homogeneity in the 1990s.

All Under the Moon premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and won a slew of domestic awards.

Laputa Asagaya