leo sato

Leo Sato’s directorial debut, The Kamagasaki Cauldron War, takes you right into the heart of an impoverished community in Osaka. His script evokes some pretty brilliant messaging in the process about the value we place in things big or small, executing it with a delightful cast and story that always stays kinetic and palpable. Such a thing in this instance is a “kama”, a ritual cauldron that belongs to the local Kamatari yakuza organization. Much becomes ado with the cauldron one evening when Henmi, a kabuki dancer struggling to support his son, Kantaro, who wants to go to school, steals the cauldron for himself, sparking an epic search for the cauldron, as well as Kantaro’s own fight for survival when the yakuza come looking. Kantaro eventually lands in the care of a prostitute named Mei, and a resident hoarder named Nikichi at the behest of Father Eichizen, a reformed yakuza […]

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