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Japan Society Announces First North American Retrospective on Kaizo Hayashi, Independent Luminary of 80s and 90s Cinema
So as to Dream: The Eternal Mysteries of Kaizo Hayashi
October 11–19, 2024
With Hayashi In-Person, Featuring International 4K Premieres of Maiku Hama Trilogy and Rare Celluloid Imports
To Sleep So as to Dream © Video Detective Agency
New York, September 10, 2024—Japan Society is pleased to announce the first North American retrospective on director Kaizo Hayashi, one of the great luminaries of independent Japanese cinema in the 1980s and 1990s. The world of Kaizo Hayashi is one of cinematic reverie and enchantment, whose reverence for film history—transposing genre and stylistic conventions from benshi and silent era serials to jidaigeki and hardboiled noir—results in one of the most imaginative and inspiring filmographies of the post-studio era. Invoking the mystery and intrigue of the moving image, amidst the flutter of celluloid frames, his cinema of the past brims with ingenuity and far-flung imagination, conjuring fantasies of what dreams may come.
Forever associated with the elusive search of the detective, Hayashi eludes homage and pastiche, crafting works in dialogue with his influences, wherein—as Donald Richie remarked on Hayashi’s debut—“history is used as though it were living and perhaps as a consequence, it comes alive.” Lost romanticism, dreams deferred in light of earthly troubles, untethered time and anachronisms drift through Hayashi’s oeuvre, itself filtered through a postmodernist and transcendent lens. Hayashi’s penchant for literary and cinematic allusion is never far behind (his debut feature takes its name from Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” soliloquy) as are his influences, from the silent era chanbara of Daisuke Ito to Nikkatsu action and Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade. Working with a remarkable roster of talent, Hayashi launched the careers of actor Shiro Sano (then a disciple of angura director Juro Kara) and Ring/Grudge producer Takashige Ichise while also collaborating with renowned Seijun Suzuki art director Takeo Kimura (Tokyo Drifter, Zigeunerweisen, Dogra Magra); Nikkatsu action star Jo Shishido; Red Elegy songwriter Morio Agata; and Shunsui Matsuda, the last benshi of the silent era. An independent talent who miraculously emerged in the 1980s outside of the typical avenues of the amateur small-gauge jishu eiga (autonomous or self-made film) championed by PIA or pinku, Hayashi arose with no formal training, endeavoring to make films equipped with only his deep devotion to cinema.
To kick off So as to Dream, Hayashi will be in attendance for the first weekend of screenings, starting with the opening night screening of his astonishing debut To Sleep So as to Dream—a mystical evocation of cinema that would screen at the 1986 Venice International Film Festival and NYFF—presented on a rare, archival 16mm import on October 11th. Hayashi will further attend the weekend screenings of his expressionist tribute to the traveling circus, Circus Boys and his celebrated neo noir The Most Terrible Time of My LIFE. The series also includes the international 4K restoration premieres of Hayashi’s popular Maiku Hama trilogy starring Masatoshi Nagase (P.P. Rider, Mystery Train) as the titular Yokohama private eye (Maiku Hama is a take on pulp writer Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer), specially prepared for Japan Society screenings. Following the restoration premiere of The Most Terrible Time of My LIFE on October 12 with Hayashi in-person, the remaining Maiku Hama restorations--The Stairway to the Distant Past, a vibrant Cinemascope middle chapter, and hypnotic psychological thriller THE TRAP—will premiere the following weekend of October 18-19.
Screeners and Press Stills available upon request. Please contact: [email protected]
Kaizo Hayashi's personal appearance has been made possible in part through a grant secured by Associate Professor Kyoko Omori of Hamilton College from its William M. Bristol, Jr. Program.
Tickets: $16/$14 students and seniors/$12 Japan Society members.
To Sleep So as to Dream with Opening Reception: $20/$16 Japan Society members
Screenings take place in Japan Society’s landmarked headquarters at 333 East 47th Street, one block from the United Nations. Lineup and other details subject to change. For complete information, visit japansociety.org/film. Tickets are available now.
FILM DESCRIPTIONS
All films are listed alphabetically.
Circus Boys
『二十世紀少年読本』(Nijusseiki shonen dokuhon)
Saturday, October 12 at 5:00 PM
Dir. Kaizo Hayashi, 1989, 35mm, 106 min., b&w, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Hiroshi Mikami, Xiu Jian, Michiru Akiyoshi, Moe Kamura.
Imported 35mm Print; Introduced by Kaizo Hayashi. With its more fitting Japanese title—“20th Century Boys Reader”—lost in translation, Kaizo Hayashi’s Circus Boys adheres to a pre-cinematic age of dream-making, one that appeals to boyhood wonder told through the virtues of imaginative fictions ascribed in periodicals and juvenile fictions. Brothers Junta and Wataru join the ranks of a traveling circus, finding a home among a troupe of painted clowns, tightrope acts and trapeze artists. A parting of ways takes place late one stormy night as the pair find themselves led down separate paths: Wataru tries to maintain the circus and its repute while Junta (Hiroshi Mikami, Grass Labyrinth) becomes a wandering snake oil salesman—using his well-practiced sleight of hand to deceive and swindle. With accentuated chiaroscuro lighting and expressionist shadowplay, Hayashi’s tribute to the bygone age of traveling shows and theatrical showmanship erupts into tragedy and hardship under the twilight gleam of a crescent moon.
The Most Terrible Time in My LIFE
『我が人生最悪の時』 (Waga jinsei saiaku no toki)
Saturday, October 12 at 8:00 PM; Friday, October 18 at 9:30 PM
Dir. Kaizo Hayashi, 1994, 92 min., DCP, b&w, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Masatoshi Nagase, Shiro Sano, Kiyotaka Nanbara, Shinya Tsukamoto.
30th Anniversary—International Premiere of 4K Restoration; 10/12 Screening Followed by a Q&A with Kaizo Hayashi. Masatoshi Nagase stars as Yokohama private eye Maiku Hama—a Japanese approximation of Mike Hammer, pulp fiction writer Mickey Spillane’s hardboiled Kiss Me Deadly P.I.—in Hayashi’s offbeat monochromatic neo noir. A likably gawkish semblance of cool dressed in Sun Tribe attire, Nagase’s cash-strapped underdog gets in way over his head as he tries to locate the missing brother of a Taiwanese immigrant, finding himself caught in the crosshairs of something more sinister: a spat between warring gang factions from Taipei and Hong Kong. Indebted to American detective noir and Nikkatsu action (a legendary chipmunk-cheeked Nikkatsu star even appears as Hama’s mentor), Hayashi and Nagase effortlessly revive the genre in this stylized distillation of the era, delivering a sleek, fast-paced detective story chockablock with thrills and double crosses.
To Sleep So as to Dream
『夢みるように眠りたい』 (Yume miru yo ni nemuritai)
Friday, October 11 at 7:00 PM
Dir. Kaizo Hayashi, 1986, 81 min., 16mm, b&w, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Shiro Sano, Moe Kamura, Koji Otake, Yoshio Yoshida, Fujiko Fukamizu.
Imported 16mm Print; Followed by a Q&A with Kaizo Hayashi and Opening Night Reception. Born from the vestiges of some long forgotten dream, Kaizo Hayashi’s debut is a hauntingly beautiful ode to the silent era that yearns for a distant past—back to an illusory world teeming with new excitements, novel invention and cryptic riddles. Under the faint glimmer of an electric lamp, an aging silver-screen starlet seeks the aid of two steadfast detectives when her darling daughter, the ethereal Bellflower, is kidnapped for ransom. The sleuths find themselves caught in a heady game of cat and mouse as they journey deeper into a sleepless realm of benshi performers, archetypal villainy and never-ending serials. Transposing the silent era’s cinematic language into a work that walks the line between antiquity and fantasy, dream and waking state, To Sleep So as to Dream casts a spell over the spectator in dream-like fashion, harking back to the magical, early days of cinema.
The Stairway to the Distant Past
『遥かな時代の階段を』 (Haruka na jidai no kaidan o)
Friday, October 18 at 7:00 PM; Saturday, October 19 at 5 PM
Dir. Kaizo Hayashi, 1995, 101 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Masatoshi Nagase, Kiyotaka Nanbara, Haruko Wanibuchi, Eiji Okada, Shiro Sano, Shinya Tsukamoto.
International Premiere of 4K Restoration. The second installment of Hayashi’s Maiku Hama trilogy spills out in vibrant, full-blown color as Maiku’s past resurfaces, setting in motion the events of this brooding and exquisitely shot sequel. Taking on puppy rescues during a slump in more weighty investigative work, Maiku hears word of the return of his long-lost mother who abandoned him and kid sister Akane years before. A legendary stripper named Lily-san, she sets up shop along the riverbanks of Yokohama where the presence of an enigmatic “Man in White” (Hiroshima Mon Amour’s Eiji Okada) begins to trouble both police and yakuza. Hayashi’s sequel lives and breathes the occupied history of the port city, its near-mythic riverfront still abiding by a postwar code of omertà. A remarkably emotive middle chapter, The Stairway to the Distant Past plunges Maiku into the darkest depths as he reconciles his past in its eerie final act, a nightmarish tableau vivant of painted faces and silent murmurs.
THE TRAP
『罠』 (Wana)
Saturday, October 19 at 7:30 PM
Dir. Kaizo Hayashi, 1996, 106 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Masatoshi Nagase, Yui Natsukawa, Kiyotaka Nanbara, Tetta Sugimoto.
International Premiere of 4K Restoration. The ominous final chapter of Hayashi’s trilogy opens in a promising light as Maiku has turned a new corner: business is booming, his sister’s been accepted into college, and he’s in love for once with the mute and angelic Yuriko (Yui Natsukawa, Still Walking). However, a brooding prologue suggests otherwise as Hayashi’s love story is countervailed by a new terror when a series of serial killings, all connected to a disquieting figure with a masked visage, begins to instill fear in Yokohama. Young women have been found dead, injected with poison and left as “sleeping beauties”—dressed up with tranquil countenances while accompanied by the faint redolence of woodland fragrance. Sharing DNA with some of Dario Argento’s most outré gialli and possessing a nihilistic edge influenced by the contemporaneous Aum Shinrikyo attacks, Hayashi’s harrowing finale spins a hallucinatory descent into darkness as Maiku finds himself assailed by a frightening opponent deep within the bowels of the city.
SCREENING DATES
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11
7 PM To Sleep So as to Dream*
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12
5 PM Circus Boys*
8 PM The Most Terrible Time in My LIFE*
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18
7 PM The Stairway to the Distant Past
9:30 PM The Most Terrible Time in My LIFE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19
5 PM The Stairway to the Distant Past
7:30 PM THE TRAP
*Indicates Q&A or Introduction with Kaizo Hayashi
Curated by Alexander Fee.
Special Thanks to Bret Berg (American Genre Film Archive); Miyuki Takamatsu and Yuko Takagi (Freestone); Kaizo Hayashi; Nicolas Raffin (ICA); Kyoko Omori; and Monika Uchiyama.
Film programs are generously supported by ORIX Corporation USA, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Anime NYC and Yen Press. Endowment support is provided by the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund and The John and Miyoko Davey Endowment Fund. Additional season support is provided by The Globus Family, David Toberisky, and Film Circle members.
Transportation assistance is provided by Japan Airlines, the official Japanese airline sponsor of Japan Society Film Program. Housing assistance is provided by the Prince Kitano New York, the official hotel sponsor of Japan Society Film Program.
About Japan Society Film
Spurred on by the success of the 1970 Donald Richie-curated MoMA retrospective The Japanese Film: 1896-1969, Japan Society committed to making film one of its key programs in the early seventies—quickly becoming the premier venue for the exhibition of new Japanese cinema as well as career-spanning retrospectives on seminal directors and actors. In 1979, Japan Society established the Japan Film Center, formalizing film as a full-fledged, year-round program aimed at cultivating a deep appreciation and understanding of Japanese film culture among American audiences. Over the years, Japan Society Film has hosted numerous high-profile premieres and programs that include visits from Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune, Hideko Takamine, and Nobuhiko Obayashi. In 2007, Japan Society Film launched JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film, the largest festival of its kind in North America.
Forever associated with the elusive search of the detective, Hayashi eludes homage and pastiche, crafting works in dialogue with his influences, wherein—as Donald Richie remarked on Hayashi’s debut—“history is used as though it were living and perhaps as a consequence, it comes alive.” Lost romanticism, dreams deferred in light of earthly troubles, untethered time and anachronisms drift through Hayashi’s oeuvre, itself filtered through a postmodernist and transcendent lens. Hayashi’s penchant for literary and cinematic allusion is never far behind (his debut feature takes its name from Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” soliloquy) as are his influences, from the silent era chanbara of Daisuke Ito to Nikkatsu action and Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade. Working with a remarkable roster of talent, Hayashi launched the careers of actor Shiro Sano (then a disciple of angura director Juro Kara) and Ring/Grudge producer Takashige Ichise while also collaborating with renowned Seijun Suzuki art director Takeo Kimura (Tokyo Drifter, Zigeunerweisen, Dogra Magra); Nikkatsu action star Jo Shishido; Red Elegy songwriter Morio Agata; and Shunsui Matsuda, the last benshi of the silent era. An independent talent who miraculously emerged in the 1980s outside of the typical avenues of the amateur small-gauge jishu eiga (autonomous or self-made film) championed by PIA or pinku, Hayashi arose with no formal training, endeavoring to make films equipped with only his deep devotion to cinema.
To kick off So as to Dream, Hayashi will be in attendance for the first weekend of screenings, starting with the opening night screening of his astonishing debut To Sleep So as to Dream—a mystical evocation of cinema that would screen at the 1986 Venice International Film Festival and NYFF—presented on a rare, archival 16mm import on October 11th. Hayashi will further attend the weekend screenings of his expressionist tribute to the traveling circus, Circus Boys and his celebrated neo noir The Most Terrible Time of My LIFE. The series also includes the international 4K restoration premieres of Hayashi’s popular Maiku Hama trilogy starring Masatoshi Nagase (P.P. Rider, Mystery Train) as the titular Yokohama private eye (Maiku Hama is a take on pulp writer Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer), specially prepared for Japan Society screenings. Following the restoration premiere of The Most Terrible Time of My LIFE on October 12 with Hayashi in-person, the remaining Maiku Hama restorations--The Stairway to the Distant Past, a vibrant Cinemascope middle chapter, and hypnotic psychological thriller THE TRAP—will premiere the following weekend of October 18-19.
Screeners and Press Stills available upon request. Please contact: [email protected]
Kaizo Hayashi's personal appearance has been made possible in part through a grant secured by Associate Professor Kyoko Omori of Hamilton College from its William M. Bristol, Jr. Program.
Tickets: $16/$14 students and seniors/$12 Japan Society members.
To Sleep So as to Dream with Opening Reception: $20/$16 Japan Society members
Screenings take place in Japan Society’s landmarked headquarters at 333 East 47th Street, one block from the United Nations. Lineup and other details subject to change. For complete information, visit japansociety.org/film. Tickets are available now.
FILM DESCRIPTIONS
All films are listed alphabetically.
Circus Boys
『二十世紀少年読本』(Nijusseiki shonen dokuhon)
Saturday, October 12 at 5:00 PM
Dir. Kaizo Hayashi, 1989, 35mm, 106 min., b&w, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Hiroshi Mikami, Xiu Jian, Michiru Akiyoshi, Moe Kamura.
Imported 35mm Print; Introduced by Kaizo Hayashi. With its more fitting Japanese title—“20th Century Boys Reader”—lost in translation, Kaizo Hayashi’s Circus Boys adheres to a pre-cinematic age of dream-making, one that appeals to boyhood wonder told through the virtues of imaginative fictions ascribed in periodicals and juvenile fictions. Brothers Junta and Wataru join the ranks of a traveling circus, finding a home among a troupe of painted clowns, tightrope acts and trapeze artists. A parting of ways takes place late one stormy night as the pair find themselves led down separate paths: Wataru tries to maintain the circus and its repute while Junta (Hiroshi Mikami, Grass Labyrinth) becomes a wandering snake oil salesman—using his well-practiced sleight of hand to deceive and swindle. With accentuated chiaroscuro lighting and expressionist shadowplay, Hayashi’s tribute to the bygone age of traveling shows and theatrical showmanship erupts into tragedy and hardship under the twilight gleam of a crescent moon.
The Most Terrible Time in My LIFE
『我が人生最悪の時』 (Waga jinsei saiaku no toki)
Saturday, October 12 at 8:00 PM; Friday, October 18 at 9:30 PM
Dir. Kaizo Hayashi, 1994, 92 min., DCP, b&w, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Masatoshi Nagase, Shiro Sano, Kiyotaka Nanbara, Shinya Tsukamoto.
30th Anniversary—International Premiere of 4K Restoration; 10/12 Screening Followed by a Q&A with Kaizo Hayashi. Masatoshi Nagase stars as Yokohama private eye Maiku Hama—a Japanese approximation of Mike Hammer, pulp fiction writer Mickey Spillane’s hardboiled Kiss Me Deadly P.I.—in Hayashi’s offbeat monochromatic neo noir. A likably gawkish semblance of cool dressed in Sun Tribe attire, Nagase’s cash-strapped underdog gets in way over his head as he tries to locate the missing brother of a Taiwanese immigrant, finding himself caught in the crosshairs of something more sinister: a spat between warring gang factions from Taipei and Hong Kong. Indebted to American detective noir and Nikkatsu action (a legendary chipmunk-cheeked Nikkatsu star even appears as Hama’s mentor), Hayashi and Nagase effortlessly revive the genre in this stylized distillation of the era, delivering a sleek, fast-paced detective story chockablock with thrills and double crosses.
To Sleep So as to Dream
『夢みるように眠りたい』 (Yume miru yo ni nemuritai)
Friday, October 11 at 7:00 PM
Dir. Kaizo Hayashi, 1986, 81 min., 16mm, b&w, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Shiro Sano, Moe Kamura, Koji Otake, Yoshio Yoshida, Fujiko Fukamizu.
Imported 16mm Print; Followed by a Q&A with Kaizo Hayashi and Opening Night Reception. Born from the vestiges of some long forgotten dream, Kaizo Hayashi’s debut is a hauntingly beautiful ode to the silent era that yearns for a distant past—back to an illusory world teeming with new excitements, novel invention and cryptic riddles. Under the faint glimmer of an electric lamp, an aging silver-screen starlet seeks the aid of two steadfast detectives when her darling daughter, the ethereal Bellflower, is kidnapped for ransom. The sleuths find themselves caught in a heady game of cat and mouse as they journey deeper into a sleepless realm of benshi performers, archetypal villainy and never-ending serials. Transposing the silent era’s cinematic language into a work that walks the line between antiquity and fantasy, dream and waking state, To Sleep So as to Dream casts a spell over the spectator in dream-like fashion, harking back to the magical, early days of cinema.
The Stairway to the Distant Past
『遥かな時代の階段を』 (Haruka na jidai no kaidan o)
Friday, October 18 at 7:00 PM; Saturday, October 19 at 5 PM
Dir. Kaizo Hayashi, 1995, 101 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Masatoshi Nagase, Kiyotaka Nanbara, Haruko Wanibuchi, Eiji Okada, Shiro Sano, Shinya Tsukamoto.
International Premiere of 4K Restoration. The second installment of Hayashi’s Maiku Hama trilogy spills out in vibrant, full-blown color as Maiku’s past resurfaces, setting in motion the events of this brooding and exquisitely shot sequel. Taking on puppy rescues during a slump in more weighty investigative work, Maiku hears word of the return of his long-lost mother who abandoned him and kid sister Akane years before. A legendary stripper named Lily-san, she sets up shop along the riverbanks of Yokohama where the presence of an enigmatic “Man in White” (Hiroshima Mon Amour’s Eiji Okada) begins to trouble both police and yakuza. Hayashi’s sequel lives and breathes the occupied history of the port city, its near-mythic riverfront still abiding by a postwar code of omertà. A remarkably emotive middle chapter, The Stairway to the Distant Past plunges Maiku into the darkest depths as he reconciles his past in its eerie final act, a nightmarish tableau vivant of painted faces and silent murmurs.
THE TRAP
『罠』 (Wana)
Saturday, October 19 at 7:30 PM
Dir. Kaizo Hayashi, 1996, 106 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Masatoshi Nagase, Yui Natsukawa, Kiyotaka Nanbara, Tetta Sugimoto.
International Premiere of 4K Restoration. The ominous final chapter of Hayashi’s trilogy opens in a promising light as Maiku has turned a new corner: business is booming, his sister’s been accepted into college, and he’s in love for once with the mute and angelic Yuriko (Yui Natsukawa, Still Walking). However, a brooding prologue suggests otherwise as Hayashi’s love story is countervailed by a new terror when a series of serial killings, all connected to a disquieting figure with a masked visage, begins to instill fear in Yokohama. Young women have been found dead, injected with poison and left as “sleeping beauties”—dressed up with tranquil countenances while accompanied by the faint redolence of woodland fragrance. Sharing DNA with some of Dario Argento’s most outré gialli and possessing a nihilistic edge influenced by the contemporaneous Aum Shinrikyo attacks, Hayashi’s harrowing finale spins a hallucinatory descent into darkness as Maiku finds himself assailed by a frightening opponent deep within the bowels of the city.
SCREENING DATES
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11
7 PM To Sleep So as to Dream*
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12
5 PM Circus Boys*
8 PM The Most Terrible Time in My LIFE*
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18
7 PM The Stairway to the Distant Past
9:30 PM The Most Terrible Time in My LIFE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19
5 PM The Stairway to the Distant Past
7:30 PM THE TRAP
*Indicates Q&A or Introduction with Kaizo Hayashi
Curated by Alexander Fee.
Special Thanks to Bret Berg (American Genre Film Archive); Miyuki Takamatsu and Yuko Takagi (Freestone); Kaizo Hayashi; Nicolas Raffin (ICA); Kyoko Omori; and Monika Uchiyama.
Film programs are generously supported by ORIX Corporation USA, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Anime NYC and Yen Press. Endowment support is provided by the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund and The John and Miyoko Davey Endowment Fund. Additional season support is provided by The Globus Family, David Toberisky, and Film Circle members.
Transportation assistance is provided by Japan Airlines, the official Japanese airline sponsor of Japan Society Film Program. Housing assistance is provided by the Prince Kitano New York, the official hotel sponsor of Japan Society Film Program.
About Japan Society Film
Spurred on by the success of the 1970 Donald Richie-curated MoMA retrospective The Japanese Film: 1896-1969, Japan Society committed to making film one of its key programs in the early seventies—quickly becoming the premier venue for the exhibition of new Japanese cinema as well as career-spanning retrospectives on seminal directors and actors. In 1979, Japan Society established the Japan Film Center, formalizing film as a full-fledged, year-round program aimed at cultivating a deep appreciation and understanding of Japanese film culture among American audiences. Over the years, Japan Society Film has hosted numerous high-profile premieres and programs that include visits from Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune, Hideko Takamine, and Nobuhiko Obayashi. In 2007, Japan Society Film launched JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film, the largest festival of its kind in North America.
