Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film
Thursday, Jul 17, 2025 at 6:00pm
212-715-1258

North America’s largest festival of contemporary Japanese film returns for its 18th year this summer at Japan Society! Join us July 10-20 for 30 curated films from across Japan featuring major award-winners, indie darlings, up-and-coming filmmakers, restorations, documentaries, experimental and short films and anime. JAPAN CUTS Powered by GU is a showcase of the latest in Japanese cinema, featuring both today’s most popular actors and directors as well as tomorrow’s pioneering talent. Become part of our passionate filmgoer community for premieres, parties and celebrity guests in the heart of America’s biggest city!

Leading this year’s highlights:

JAPAN CUTS Powered by GU will present legendary director Kiyoshi Kurosawa with the CUT ABOVE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film, host the premieres of his new film Cloud and recent remake of Serpent’s Path, as well as showcase revivals of License to Live and a new 4K restoration of the original Serpent’s Path.

Schedule

July 17, 2025

Serpent’s Path

With Director Q&A

6:00 pm

East Coast Premiere-Q&A with Kiyoshi Kurosawa. A higher budget remake of Kurosawa’s 1998 straight-to-video effort, Serpent’s Path presents a variation on the original, supplanting Tokyo for the overcast banlieues of Paris while swapping genders with its clinical protagonist and adding new narrative depths despite overtly, if not eerily, echoing its predecessor. Kidnapping an associate of a purported child-trafficking organization ominously named The Circle, Albert (Damien Bonnard) seeks retribution for the death of his child, and enacts his cruel vengeance with the aid of physician Sayoko (Ko Shibasaki). The snaking narrative of Kurosawa’s psychological experiment has been told once before, yet its pathway differs ever so slightly. With haunting precision, Serpent’s Path suggests that the destination remains incontrovertibly the same.

Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2024, 113 min, DCP, color, in French with English subtitles. With Ko Shibasaki, Damien Bonnard, Mathieu Amalric, Hidetoshi Nishijima.

Tickets

$20 Nonmembers

$14 Members

$18 Seniors/Students

$18 Person with Disability

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