"Hula Girls" wins in 4 categories in Japan Academy

Mr. Texas' yesterday prediction was almonst perfect, except for Best Director category.  In Japan Academy Award presentation, held yesterday in Tokyo, "Hula Girls" won in 4 categories including Best Picture.  As Mr. Texas points out, it is one of the rare cases that an independent studio (other than Toho, Toei and Shochiku) wins the Best Picture, plus it is not even backed up by a TV station, and it is generally considered a good sign for more diversity in Japanese movie industry. 

Other categories were pretty much evenly devided among "Memories of Matsuko" (Toho), "Love and Honor" (Shochiku) and "YAMATO" (Toei), as you can see below.  Miwa Nishikawa's "Sway", which has been pretty strong in other major film awards, was totally shut out - probably because it is by the same studio Cinequannon as "Hula Girls".  VERY POLITICAL, isn't it!?  Anyway, here is a photo of the winners.

Personally, the biggest surprise was the Best Animation Feature Film category, which is established for the first time this year.  Instead of the biggest hit J-movie in 2006, from the most famed animation studio in Japan, AND backed up by NTV who broadcasted the presentation event - "Tales from Earthsea", of course -, relatively minor "The Girl who Leapt through Time" won the first crown.  See my previous articles about the animation battle last summer for more details about the film and the juicy gossip around Director Mamoru Hosoda.  Poor Goro Miyazaki is like a sandbag these days...

So here is the winners list:

• Best Picture:  Hula Girls
• Best Animation Feature Film:  The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
• Best Director:  Lee Sang-Il  ("Hula Girls")
• Best Screenplay:  Lee Sang-Il, Daisuke Habara ("Hula Girls")
• Best Actor:  Ken Watanabe ("Memories of Tomorrow")
• Best Actress:  Miki Nakatani ("Memories of Matsuko")
• Best Supporting Actor:  Takashi Sasano ("Love and Honor")
• Best Supporting Actress:  Yu Aoi ("Hula Girls")
• Best Music:  Gabriel Roberto, Tsuyoshi Shibuya ("Memories of Matsuko")
• Best Cinematography:  Mutsuo Naganuma ("Love and Honor")
• Best Lighting Direction:  Takeshi Nakasu ("Love and Honor")
• Best Art Direction:  Toshiyuki Matsumiya, Naruyuki Kondo ("YAMATO")
• Best Sound Recording:  Nobuhiko Matsukage, Tetsuo Segawa ("YAMATO")
• Best Film Editing:  Yoshiyuki Koike ("Memories of Matsuko")
• Best Foreign Film:  Flags of Our Fathers

Please see Hoga Central Japan Academy page for the full list of this year's nominees and past winners.  (For the full list of winners/nominees since 2001, click the numbers in "compete list" column.)

Source:  Yomiuri Online and many others

<Addition 2/17>

Jason Gray has put up a link to his nice interview of the Best Director winner Lee Sang-Il on his blog.  Please also see the full list of this year's Blue Ribbon Awards winners here.

Comments

[Michi]

I liked it. It is a great fun movie. I generally like this category of stories - feel good, underdogs work hard to succeed, with the great performance at the end (such as Swing Girls, Water Boys, etc.), even though the story is totally predictable. And I think this one is a very well made among that category.

However, as a layperson, I did not quite understand why was HG SO special in the award circuits. I thought there were lots of other fun movies worth mentioning, and why HG stood out so much was a bit of mystery for me. As always, I don't quite understand the experts' view...

[jason gray]

Thanks for the mention. By the way, what did you think of HG?