On 12 December, A Tale of a Samurai Cooking, a film set in Ishikawa Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast will open at the Curzon Mayfair, giving movie-goers a silver screen look into this soon-to-be easier to access part of Japan. Director Yuzo Asahara chose to set the film in Kaga Domain, the former name for Kanazawa area during Japan’s Edo Period (1603-1868). Asahara offers an alternative take on the samurai genre with a story revolving around the relationship between a gastronomically gifted young woman and her frustrated samurai husband who is working as a chef in a warlord clan. This film is a must for lovers of Japanese food and for samurai film fans. Japan’s shinkansen bullet train network is set to expand in spring on 14 March 2015 with the completion of the Hokuriku line extension to Kanazawa, Ishikawa’s capital, slashing journey times from Tokyo to Kanazawa from four hours to 2.5 hours.
In the film, great cook Haru has married into the legendary “Kitchen Samurai” family, but her husband who is the successor of the family cannot cook at all. Haru makes a vow to turn him into a superb samurai chef, and starts teaching her new husband how to cook. Asahara, well known in Japan for the ‘Free and Easy’ series of films, directs Aya Ueto as Haru in the film along with Kengo Kora as her husband Yasunobu, and supported by the veteran actors Kimiko Yo, Toshiyuki Nishida as well as the aromas and flavours of Kaga cuisine. The story is inspired by a real-life family in Kaga that has survived countless upheavals with its cuisine.
Kanazawa in Japan is blessed with a variety of foodstuffs, such as rice cropped in the Kaga Plain, Kaga vegetables, water of good quality in the Hakusan Mountains, and fish and shellfish caught in the Sea of Japan. Kaga Cuisine developed in feudal times, but can still be enjoyed in Kanazawa served on beautiful Kutani porcelain and lacquer ware, just as the samurai in the film do. There are high-class restaurants where people enjoy eating local cuisine in beautiful Japanese-style rooms while looking onto a traditional garden. Traditional Kaga cuisine dishes still popular today include Jibuni – made from boiled and seasoned duck coated with wheat, wheat gluten, and vegetables in thick soup, as well as ‘kabura zushi’ – a type of sushi consisting of turnips and yellowtail pickled together combining balanced sweet and sour flavours.
JNTO has a double pass to the Curzon Mayfair premiere of A Tale of Samurai Cooking on Friday, 12 December 2014 to give away. To enter answer this question:
How long will it take to travel from Tokyo to Kanazawa after the new bullet train line extension opens in March 2015?
Email your answer to info@jnto.co.uk, along with your name and address and “Samurai Cooking” as the subject. Entries close at midnight on 7 December and the winner of the double pass will be notified on 8 December.
For more about Kaga Cuisine and the Kanazawa area visit www.kanazawa-tourism.com.
A Tale of a Samurai Cooking will premiere at Curzon Mayfair at 6:15pm on Friday, 12 December 2014.
Outside of London, more film from Japan’s regions is coming to cinemas across the UK next year. Since 2004, the London office of the Japan Foundation has organised a film programme in partnership with film venues and advisors in the UK. Each year, six to seven largely contemporary Japanese titles are put together under a carefully chosen theme to highlight trends in Japanese cinema and showcase the versatility and uniqueness displayed by Japanese film makers. The programme also showcases directors and works which, while being worthwhile, may have slipped under the radar of other film festivals or programmes.
Examples of programmes which have toured previously: ‘Comic Proportions: Japanese films adapted from Manga’ (2006), ‘A Life More Ordinary: A portrait of contemporary Japanese people on film’ (2008), ‘Reality Fiction: Japanese films inspired by actual events’ (2009), ‘Girls on Film: Females in contemporary Japanese cinema’ (2010), and ‘Back to the Future: Japanese cinema since the mid-90s’ (2011).
For information on the programme which starts on 30 January 2015, check http://www.jpf-film.org.uk/ for the venues and content as it becomes updated.
Text modified from original JNTO article linked above.
