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Hula Girls - special event and screening

Hula Girls - special event and screening

Directed by Lee Sang-II

Premiere Japan at BAFTA (2007)

Review by Susan Meehan


For the third year running, the Embassy of Japan organised an excellent festival of new Japanese films at BAFTA over the weekend of 14-16 September 2007. Guided by the expert hands of Tony Rayns and Alexander Jacoby, the choice of films on offer was extremely good.

Hula Girls (2006) had its UK premiere on Saturday 15 September and was preceded by a talk between acclaimed East Asian film critic Tony Rayns and director, Lee Sang-II, who flew over from Japan especially for the event. Gently probing, Tony Rayns elicited interesting and lengthy replies from the very thoughtful and eloquent Lee, on topics ranging from Lee's Korean ethnicity to his time at film school and his opinion on the state of the Japanese film industry (though more people in Japan are watching Japanese rather than foreign films, most of these tend to be TV spin offs - a situation Lee is not happy with).

Lee was born in Niigata, Japan in 1974, but having attended a Korean School in Japan, he said that there had been times when he had felt isolated from Japanese society and had been moved to make films on the Korean situation such as Blue Chong (Ao Chong, 2000), a portrayal of third generation Koreans in Japan. Blue Chong, Lee's graduation piece from the Japan Academy of Moving Images was also his first feature film and won him the Grand Prize at the PIA Film Festival. His next film, Borderline (2002) once again mused on Japanese society and the zainichi or ethnic Koreans.

The success of Borderline led to the Japanese film industry knocking on Lee's door. Unable to refuse the lucrative offers which came his way, a rather wistful Lee conceded that it meant no more dabbling with indies - at least for the time being. His ambition is to make an independent movie with a great budget, but the first step towards this is to work in the mainstream.

Lee's third film, Sixty Nine, was a change of pace and studio commission (Toei) based on the Ryu Murakami autobiographical book and was followed by Scrap Heaven about two boys, a girl and their revenge game and then Hula Girls.

Hula Girls was released to much critical acclaim in Japan in September 2006 and went on to win five major awards at the 2007 Japan Academy Awards including best film, best director, best screenplay, best supporting actress and most popular film. It also won two major awards at the prestigious 80th Kinema Junpo Awards including best film and best actress.

Though centering on a motley crew of women in hula gear, the film is reminiscent of the Full Monty, Billy Elliott, Calendar Girls and Brassed Off in its depiction of the demise of a mining community and its demoralised citizens. It is 1965 Japan and the mining town of Iwaki in Fukushima Prefecture is in terminal decline with the collapse of the coal mining industry. In hope of restoring Iwaki's fortunes, the town's elders and sole mining company have a whacky idea - the building of a Hawaiian Centre in this region of Japan which experiences winters bitter enough to obliterate the hardiest of palm trees.

By turns funny and sad and occasionally menacing with glimpses into domestic violence, Hula Girls is undoubtedly a feel-good film and the local Japanese dialect used is a joy to hear. Characters are developed fully and change over the course of the film which is charged at times with tension and conflict ("the essence of drama," according to Tony Rayns).

We were extremely privileged to have another audience with Lee after the screening. Looking very relaxed, he told Tony Rayns that much research had gone into the film which he wrote with Daisuke Habara - he visited Iwaki of course and read interviews with the dancers and miners. The Hawaiian centre (now called the Spa Resort Hawaiians) still exists and since the film's success has been fully booked for months ahead.

We were not surprised to hear that Lee made the film with the features Billy Elliott, Brassed Off and The Full Monty very much on his mind. As to the lack of romance in the film, Lee initially said this would have got in the way of the story, but then admitted that in the first version of the film which was just under three hours long, romance did feature. Pressed into shortening the film, the romance between the Hula teacher and Kimiko's brother and a love interest for Sayuri were sacrificed. There was a collective melancholic sigh from a rather soppy audience at this point.

In answer to a question about favourite directors, Lee said he continues to respect Imamura Shohei and admires Ken Loach - he loved The Wind that Shakes the Barley.

Following the Q&A, I couldn't believe my luck at being introduced to Lee over a drink of Guinness in the swanky BAFTA bar and asked him about his influences. Lee said that he likes films by Kurosawa Akira, Martin Scorcese, Imamura Shohei, Francis Coppola, Ken Loach and Stanley Kubrick. He naturally likes the films which Hula Girls is often compared to (Billy Elliott, The Full Monty and Brassed Off) and had even been to Victoria Palace to see the Billy Elliott musical during his stay in London.

As to actors outside of Japan whom he respects and would like to work with, Lee mentioned Liam Neeson, Sean Penn and Daniel Day Lewis. I started getting a feel for this director who likes heavy-weight actors with a political and social conscience and identified with his good taste! I suggested that he might like Jim Sherridan's In the Name of the Father, which he does, and Lee also said that he loves Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen and Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, which made a tremendous impact on him. Given the chance, he would like to make a film based on the novel by thriller writer Takamura Kaoru called Shoot the Riviera, which takes place in Ireland, Japan and the UK.

I can't wait to see Lee back in London and look forward to his next film which he is already working on. It is set in the 1880s, and deals with the modernisation of Japan and the Ainu of Hokkaido post-Meiji Restoration; certainly something to look forward to!