KANEKO FUMIKO

An Infamous Figure Gets a Compelling Biodrama

Venue(s): Over 10 domestic theaters.: https://x.gd/sLohi
From February 28, 2026 at Eurospace. After that other theaters follow.
Language: Japanese with Japanese subtitles
Official website: kanekofumiko-movie.com/
Theater website: x.gd/sLohi
Trailer: bit.ly/4pC1nnu
Tariff: Check the theater websites.
Advance tickets: Visit theater site for details.
Talk event: Check the theater websites.

Title: 金子文子　何が私をこうさせたか (Kaneko Fumiko Nani ga Watashi wo kou sasetaka)
Director: Sachi Hamano (浜野佐知)
Duration: 121 min

It’s been 100 years since Kaneko Fumiko died in solitary confinement at Tochigi Women’s Prison, age 23. A nihilist who refused to compromise, Kaneko remains one of the most radical and unsettling figures in modern Japanese history. Now, there is a moving, unconventional biodrama that illuminates her largely undocumented struggle, directed by veteran filmmaker Sachi Hamano. It’s showing with English subtitles and should be considered essential viewing.

Hamano, who she is best known as a prolific pink (erotic) film director, draws on trial records and Kaneko’s surviving tanka poems to bring her young protagonist to life. Denied legal status at birth and raised without a family register, Kaneko had been sent to colonial Korea, where she endured years of near-slavery as well as witnessing Japan’s brutal colonial rule and the Korean independence movement, before returning to Japan as a teen.

Kaneko’s ideological journey—from Christianity to socialism to anarchism—ultimately led her to nihilism and a fateful partnership with Korean nihilist Park Yeol. “Kaneko Fumiko” opens following the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, when the two are framed as conspirators in a plot to assassinate the Crown Prince, a fabrication used to legitimize the state-sanctioned violence against Koreans.

Rather than plead innocence, Kaneko and Park accept the charge of high treason, transforming the courtroom into a battleground of ideas. Due to lack of evidence, an imperial amnesty commutes their death sentences to life imprisonment.

Focusing on the 121 days between her death sentence and her suicide in prison, the film movingly depicts Kaneko’s final confrontation with the Japanese state. Anchored by a searing performance from Nahana, Hamano paints a portrait of a woman who insisted that even death must remain an act of freedom.

Theaters and opening dates

◆Tokyo: February 28, 2026 (Sat) ~
Eurospace (http://eurospace.co.jp/schedule/)
◆Shizuoka: March 6, 2026 (Fri) ~
Shizuoka Toho Kaikan (https://www.cine-7.com/)
◆Hamamatsu: March 6 (Fri) -
Cinema Eira (http://cinemae-ra.jp/)
◆Nagoya: March 7, 2026 (Sat) -
Cinema Skhole (http://www.cinemaskhole.co.jp)
◆Kyoto: March 13, 2026 (Fri) -
Kyoto Cinema (https://www.kyotocinema.jp/)
◆Nagano: March 13, 2026 (Fri) ~
Nagano Aioi-za & Roxy (http://www.naganoaioiza.com/)
◆Osaka: March 14, 2026 (Sat) -
Cine Nouveau (http://cinenouveau.com/)
◆Kobe: March 21, 2026 (Sat) -
Motomachi Eiga-kan (https://www.motoei.com/)
◆Yokohama: March 28, 2026 (Sat) ~
Cinemarin (https://cinemarine.co.jp/)
◆Gunma: March 28, 2026 (Sat) ~
Maebashi Cinema House (https://maecine.com/)
◆Hiroshima: April 4, 2026 (Sat) ~
Yokogawa Cinema (https://yokogawa-cine.jugem.jp/)
◆Osaka: April 4 (Sat) -
Theater Seven (https://www.theater-seven.com/)
◆Nagano: April 10, 2026 (Fri) -
Ueda Eikoku (https://www.uedaeigeki.com/)
◆Nagano: April 29, 2026 (Wed, National Holiday)
Matsumoto CINEMA Select (https://www.cinema-select.com/)
◆Hakodate: TBA
Cinema Iris (https://www.cinemairis.com/)
◆Yamagata: Screening schedule TBA
MOVIE ON Yamagata (https://movieon.jp/)
◆Onomichi: TBA
Cinema Onomichi (http://cinemaonomichi.com/)
◆Saga: TBA
THEATER ENYA (https://theater-enya.com/)
◆Kumamoto: TBA
Denkikan (https://denkikan.com/)