Formerly-titled “The Post-War Project,” is writer/director Shinya Tsukamoto’s next offering, with a teaser now online for roaring period drama, Shadow Of Fire (or Hokage). Featuring actress Shuri, the film centers on the lives of three people in a dilapidated pub left standing amid the black market-driven ruins of World War II: A woman who sells her body to make a living, a war orphan, and a demobilised soldier suffering from PTSD.
Shuri, whose lead role in Kosai Sekine’s Love At Least (2018) won her Newcomer of the Year at the 42nd Japan Academy Awards, is joined by burgeoning talent Oga Tsukao, actor Hiroki Kono who previously appears in delinquent thriller Demekin (2017) and Shin’ichirô Ueda’s Special Actors (2019), and Mirai Moriyama whose credits partly include two-part boxing drama Underdog (2020), and Shin Kamen Rider (2023).
“It’s about a fire and the everchanging shadows it casts on its surroundings,” said Tsukamoto, according to the film’s programming notes ahead of its premiere at the 80th La Biennale di Venezia. Tsukamoto added that he revisits themes he explored in his last two films to accomplish this, Fires On The Plain (2014) and Killing (2018), both reflecting on the lateral and lasting affects of war.
“As the world takes a step backward from peace, I felt compelled to make this movie, as a prayer,” he said.
Shadow Of Fire will hold its first screening in Venice on September 4 with the first date set at TIFF in Toronto on September 7.
