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Arts & Culture Vancouver Asahi at the VIFF

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by milquetoast, Oct 5, 2014.

  1. milquetoast

    milquetoast Senior Member



    Once upon a time in Vancouver, there was a baseball team called the Asahi, This was in the 1930s, when the city had a small Japantown on the downtown wharves, and the team was formed by the Canadian-born kids of immigrants. At the start they were always wiped out by the burly Caucasian teams, and they encountered their share of racism and prejudice along the way. But they rethought their strategy and began to pull back lost ground … until Canada’s growing worries about Japanese militarism got in the way and Pearl Harbor led to the mass internment of émigré Japanese. The Asahi never really recovered from the war, so its achievements have become the stuff of legend.

    VIFF is proud to have supported Ishii Yuya from his indie beginnings (Bare-assed Japan, VIFF 2007) and we’ve followed his progress with admiration right through to last year’s wonderful The Great Passage. So we’re happy that he’s turned to a resonant piece of Vancouver history for his new film and delighted that we get to stage its premiere with a number of special guests. The film recreates 1930s Vancouver on a lavish scale, explores the clash between separatist immigrants and their assimilationist kids and has a generous measure of Ishii’s trademark humour and humanity. An old-fashioned entertainment in the best sense. In a word, thrilling.
     
    BragDeal likes this.

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