IFFR 1998

Mochizuki Rokuro

Mood film marks co-operation between the director with the ex-Yakuza-lawyer Yamanouchi Yukio and the ex-punk-rock star Ishibashi Ryo as hitman in this grisly-beautiful neo-film noir.

Mochizuki Rokuro retro

Another Lonely Hitman

Picaresque road-movie set in the early sixties in rural Japan, a chronicle of a travelling theatre company that wants to break its ties with the Yakuza.

Debeso

Film about minor gangsters with megalomania is reminiscent of Godard with its eccentric mixture of comedy, drama, bizarre sex and an obsessive interest in money.

Mobster's Confessions

Rokuro Mochizuki

Mochizuki's second co-operative venture with the writer Yamanouchi may well be the most intense moving (anti) Yakuza film ever made.

Onibi: the Fire Within

Very bizarre and ambiguous 'moral drama' may be Mochizuki's best film so far. the cop Himuro is picked as scapegoat by his superiors because of their own involvement in sokaiya gangster practices.

The Outer Way

Man sneaks into Japan disguised as a Buddhist monk to finish a lucrative industrial spying job. Everyone is after him: the Mafia, hysterical Taiwanese killers and a 'silent' policewoman.

Pinocchio - A Man Without Nationality

Kayama (33) maintains his family and his staff as small-scale porn video-maker. Mochizuki's semi-autobiographical feature debut looks at the porn sub-culture with insight and humour.

Skinless Night

Part III of the 'mischievous reporter' is a fast, raw, even 'philosophical' film full of sex, violence and gambling in low-life circles.

The Wicked Reporter - The One That Got Away

Playful film bordering on comic turns radically in mood at the end. Tazaka has been healed of his heroin addiction, but his release drives him back into the gangster circuit. With wonderful location shots of Osaka.

IFFR 2025
30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025