Recently, ‘A Man’ released a new set of stills, directed by Kei Ishikawa, starring Satoshi Tsumabuki, Sakura Andô, Masataka Kubota, Nana Seino, Hidekazu Mashima, etc.
The existential drift of Japan’s post-bubble “lost generation” gets the mystery thriller treatment in Kei Ishikawa’s Venice Horizons entry, A Man.
Based on the novel of the same name by Japanese author Keiichiro Hirano, A Man follows a troubled lawyer (Satoshi Tsumabuki) who is drawn into a web of mystery when a former client (played by a soulful Sakura Ando, star of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or winner Shoplifters) asks him to investigate the mysterious past of her deceased husband (a beguiling Masataka Kubota).
The attorney encounters an array of colorful characters in his pursuit of the identify of this man who lived his life as a different person — but as he comes closer to the shocking truth, mixed feelings about the nature of his own place in the world steadily creep up on him.
A Man reunites Ishikawa with Tsumabuki, star of his well-received directorial debut, Traces of Sin, which premiered in Horizons in 2017.
Marquee handsome, the actor embodies a successful, happily married attorney who in many ways has a model life — but one who nonetheless finds elements of discord everywhere he turns, leaving him wondering what it might be like to step into a new life altogether, much like the man he is pursuing.
The film opens and closes with a shot of René Magritte’s classic surrealist painting, Not to Be Reproduced, which depicts a man standing in front of a mirror, but with a reflection that shows him from behind, rather than his face.
The enigmatic image “encapsulates many of A Man‘s ideas about the elusiveness of identity,” Ishikawa says.Shochiku, has lined up a sizable theatrical release for the film in Japan on Nov. 18.
A few days ago, the film was shortlisted for the Horizon Competition at the 79th Venice International Film Festival and will be released in Japan on November 18.
