Japan Cuts XVII Review: Shunji Iwai’s KYRIE is a Beautiful Ballad About Life, Regret, and Moving Forward
4 min. read Homeless street musician Kyrie (AiNA THE END) is unable to normally communicate verbally but is able to sing beautifully soulful songs with her guitar. When she encounters an old friend Maori (Hirose Suzu), now a city girl going by Ikko, they agree to team up as talent and manager respectively. When their pasts catch up to them, both Kyrie and Maori must confront their mistakes, losses, and traumas to bring Kyrie’s voice back out into the world. After films such as Swallowtail Butterfly and All About Lily Chou Chou, director Shunji Iwai returns to the music film genre with Kyrie; a soulful drama about the high and low notes in life, based on his own novel, titled “Kyrie no Uta” or “Kyrie’s Song.” AiNA THE END, hereinafter referred to as AiNA, makes her major feature debut alongside well established actress Hirose Suzu and a number of both […]