The library, in cooperation with the Chatfield Center for the Arts and Wits’ End Theatre, will be showing an award-winning, first run, independent or foreign film at Potter Auditorium every second Sunday of each month beginning in February! This is your chance (if you are 17 or older) to see independent and foreign films, for free, on the big screen, in historic Potter Auditorium!
Come see
KEY OF LIFE
on Sunday, Feb. 9th
at 3:00pm
at Potter Auditorium
for FREE!
Key of Life
A film by Kenji Uchida
Japan / 2012 / Comedy / Japanese with English subtitles /
128 min. / Color / 1.85 / Dolby Surround
LA Asian Pacific Film Festival says it is “a very clever and comical farce of mistaken identities. It’s essentially TRADING PLACES through a Japanese lens and the result is one of the funniest and cleverest Japanese films in a long while.”
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“This brilliant comedy of mistaken identity won the Best Screenplay award at the Japanese academy awards, but the acting will have you falling out of your seat laughing. With shades of It’s a Wonderful Life, Some Like It Hot, and Fletch, it’s one of the best comedies to be made in decades.” – Judy Gelman Myers from Director Talk
*******
“Breezy rhythm, witty dialogue and excellent thesping chemistry.”
Maggie Lee, Variety
*******
“Intelligent, amusing, and casually touching.”
Kong Rithdee, Cinema Scope
SYNOPSIS
35-year-old Sakurai is out of work, out of luck, and his dreams to become an
actor have been dashed. He tries to end his own life, but fails miserably, so he
goes to relax at a public bathhouse. There he meets the mysterious Kondo, who
subsequently suffers a fall, erasing his memory. On a whim, Sakurai switches
locker keys, steals the man’s belongings, and decides to pass himself off as
Kondo. What Sakurai does not know, is that Kondo works for ornery yakuza
gangsters. Meanwhile, Kondo has been convinced that he is actually the failed
actor Sakurai, and faces this dismal ‘reality’ with increasing bewilderment.
Fortunately, at the hospital he meets the lovely Kanae who, while desperately
searching for a husband, goes out of her way to help ‘Sakurai’ pull himself
together. Eventually Kondo regains his memory, but before he can make a new
life with Kanae, he has to solve the many problems caused by Sakurai’s identity
theft.
FESTIVALS AND AWARDS
WINNER, Halekulani Golden Orchid Award for Narrative Feature– Hawaii
International Film Festival
NOMINATED, Best Actor, Masato Sakai – Award of the Japanese
Academy
NOMINATED, Best Screenplay, Kenji Uchida – Award of the Japanese Academy
NOMINATED, Best Supporting Actor, Teruyuki Kagawa – Award of the Japanese Academy
NOMINATED, Best Supporting Actress, Ryoko Hirosue – Award of the Japanese Academy
OFFICIAL SELECTION:
TORONTO Int’l Film Festival
VANCOUVER Int’l Film Festival
PALM SPRINGS Int’l Film Festival
PORTLAND Int’l Film Festival
