ARCHIVED ONLINE EVENT - Japan Society Film Club: Dark Water directed by Hideo Nakata

Date
Wednesday 7 July 2021
Time
6.30pm (BST)
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Booking Details
Free - Booking essential
Priority for Japan Society Members

Please remember to watch the film in advance. Dark Water is available to rent or buy on Rakuten TV, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube, Microsoft Store, and Apple iTunes, as well as on Arrow Video and Shudder with subscription.

The activities of the Japan Society are made possible thanks to the support of its members. This event is free of charge and open to all. We realise that this is a difficult time for many people. However, if you are planning to attend and do not have a membership subscription as an individual or through your employer, please consider making a donation. You can find details of membership and how to join the Japan Society community here.

Do you love Japanese film classics, anime or contemporary cinema stories? Do you miss Japan and want to see it at least on screen? Would you like to learn and discuss about Japanese culture and society? Join us for the Japan Society Film Club where we will chat online about films and Japan in an informal atmosphere.

For the Film Club in July we invite you to watch one of the best examples of J-horror, the emotional and atmospheric Dark Water directed by Hideo Nakata in 2002.

One of the finest and most unsettling films in contemporary Japanese horror cinema, Dark Water (仄暗い水の底から, Honogurai mizu no soko kara, 2002) adapts a short story by Ring author Koji Suzuki depicting the struggles of a single mother living in a dilapidated apartment building with her daughter. Soon after moving, she begins to be haunted by disturbing visions and noises. Emotional, atmospheric, and full of tension and scary moments, Dark Water represents an excellent update on the horror genre film and a psychological portrait of motherhood, family relations and social isolation in contemporary Japan.

Hideo Nakata (1961- ) is a Japanese film and TV director and scriptwriter specialising in horror cinema. Born in Okayama prefecture, he entered into the film industry in 1985 working as an assistant director at the Nikkatsu studio. In the 1990s he started to direct horror TV dramas and traveled to the UK with a scholarship for artists from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs. He spent one year in England where he began shooting a documentary on the film director Joseph Losey which he completed in 1998, Joseph Losey: The Man with Four Names. That same year he directed Ring, a film adaptation of a novel by Koji Suzuki. Ring was a commercial and critical success and is considered the starting point of the so-called J-horror cinema. He also directed the sequel, Ring 2 (1999), and Dark Water (2000), as well the US remakes of these two films. Nakata has continued to direct films and TV series, mainly in the horror genre, in Japan and abroad such as Chatroom (2010), Monsterz (2014) and Sadako (2019).

Japan Society Film Club takes place on the first Wednesday of the month. We will recommend a film to watch in advance and meet online to discuss. Films are often available online for free, on DVD, online platforms or on BFI player which includes a special season on Japanese cinema. When possible, we will invite film experts to introduce and lead the discussion, but the event is open to all and we encourage participants to freely express their opinions and feelings about the films.

If you have any questions, please call the Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.

Booking Info