19-year-old director Tomoko Fukai makes her debut with "Umeda Yuko no Kokuhaku"

by Chris MaGee

I want to start this story by saying that for my money one of the best sources for information in English about what's going on in Japanese cinema is Kevin Ouellette's Nippon Cinema. The amount of digging that he does to find really interesting films that might otherwise fall through the cracks puts bloggers like me to shame. A really great example of the kind of film that he shines the spotlight on is "Umeda Yuko no Kokuhaku (Yuko Umeda's Confession)", the directorial debut of 19-year-old Tokyo Visual Arts College student Tomoko Fukai.

Fukai has taken the old adage of "Write what you know," and crafted a film about a 19-year-old woman, Yuko (played by fellow Tokyo Visual Arts grad Remi Yakihiro) who works in a gyūdon restaurant by day and as a hostess in a cabaret club by night. Working in a fast food joint is enough to put you off the general public, but combine that with the patrons of the cabaret and Yuko's faith in humanity has hit rock bottom, especially her faith in the males of the species. That all changes when a handsome, sensitive man named Yamada (Kikujiro Honda) begins coming to the gyūdon restaurant.

If you head over to Kevin's story here you can check out the trailer for "Umeda Yuko no Kokuhaku". It looks like a pretty polished piece of work; and not only is it exciting to see such a new director debut in the Japanese film industry, but it's especially exciting to see a female director, because how many Japanese female directors can you name off the top of your head...?