21st annual Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival kicks off in Hokkaido

by Chris MaGee

The headline "Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival kicks off for another year" is always a great thing to see. That's because the film festival, and the Hokkaido city that hosts it, literally shut down in 2007. The film festival, which brings the best of genre and fantastic films from Japan and around the globe to northern Japan, struggled back to life and is now back to bringing over 10,000 visitors to Yubari each year.

This year is no different. Along with such films as Edgar Wright's "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" (bringing a bit of Toronto to Japan) the Japanese programme of this year's Yubari Fest is packed with films. Nikkatsu's Sushi Typhoon forms the center of the programme with a trio of films, "Alien vs. Ninja", "Helldriver" and the world premiere of Yudai Yamagichi and Tak Sakaguchi's "Yakuza Weapon". Joining these are films like Kenji SEki's "Hard Life" (above) starring Saki Terashima and Shinwa Kataoka, Makoto Shinosaki's "Night of the Evil Comets", and Ryutaro Kajino's "Seafood Girl Maiko".

The 21st annual Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival runs until February 28th. To check out all that is going on in Yubari visit the fest's official website here.