6th Okinawa International Movie Festival

Also, the "Japanese Comedy/World Comedy" category has been around ever since the festival's inauguration, and it is the program derived from enthusiasm quite unique to the Okinawa International Movie Festival, which has been particular about "comedy".
This category will be produced, as in last year, by Tetsuo Takahira, who is active in many fields as theater director/editor/author.
If you watch an array of unique films selected by Mr. Takahira, who has worked on a number of legendary popular TV programs including "Oretachi Hyokin Zoku" and "Waratte Iitomo!", you may find yourself having a new comedic viewpoint.
Not only watching Japanese comedies but also comparing them to world comedies and others is a way of taking pleasure at the Okinawa International Movie Festival.

You may ask “Is this a comedy?”, but I think if there is laughter in the intentions of the creator, it’s ok to classify it as a comedy. The films of Takashi Miike could be said to be similar to those of Tarantino, who has a strong comedic bent. There is laughter underlying the work of Director Shion Sono. The expressions of Denden as he indifferently deals with a dead body are fantastic. It is reminiscent of Danshi Tatekawa’s “Kogane Mochi” Rakugo. In “Dokuritsu Gurentai”, Director Kihachi Okamoto changed up the previously dreary Japanese war movie, invoking more of a Western action feel. This stylish and unconventional production style has gone beyond action movies, and has also been exhibited in strong comedy films such as “Satsujin Kyo Jidai” and “Ah Bakudan!”.

In recent times, films such as “Now You See Me” and “Mission Impossible” have featured con games where a trusted party cheats another, but it was in “The Sting” where we all laughed with delight. Comedian Groucho Marx was the first to say that laughter should never be warm and gentle. This was said to have been in rela- tion to a war movie, but it is unlikely that he truly felt that way. The essence of Groucho was to consciously defy the rules and take the defiant and cynical view that it’s ok not to laugh. Harpo Marx, who doesn’t speak a word, is also a must see.