What’s Up Connection

Portland premiere of the new restoration!

Part of the Hanabi Film Festival, running select days Aug. 18 – 31. Limited festival passes available for access to all films.

When Hong Kong teenager Chi Gau Shin (Tse Wai-Kit) wins a trip to Japan, he begins a journey that takes him from his small fishing village to Tokyo by way of Kamagasaki—the so-called slums of Osaka. On the way, he connects with a barely competent tour guide named Kumi and the shapeshifting, loudmouthed and lovable thief Akane.

Upon returning home with this merry band of schemers, Gau Shin finds his family of resourceful counterfeiters on the verge of expropriation: a multinational conglomerate led by a ruthless Japanese developer has found the village, and is determined to raze it to build the new center of world trade!

A breathless, kaleidoscopic evocation of a specific pan-Asian cultural experience as the 1990s drew near, this rare bilingual Japan–Hong Kong coproduction unfolds as part unhinged globalization mini-epic, part fringe documentary, as director Masashi Yamamoto brings his project—of capturing beauty and resilience in the margins of capital—to its maximalist apex with a score by avant-garde trumpeter Toshinori Kondo.

Our previous screening of Masashi Yamamoto’s Robinson’s Garden quickly sold out, and so we’re very excited to present the punk rock pioneer’s subsequent work to Portland for the first time.

Screened in Japanese with English subtitles.

As a special treat SakéOne will be offering limited complimentary sake tastings to the first few people through the doors and selling a selection of bottles to take home, including their Naginata, G50, Moonstone Plum, and Momokawa Pearl varieties, along with Murai Family Sugidama imported from Hachinohe.

SakéOne is Oregon’s only sake brewery and the nation’s largest importer of Japanese sake, leading the way in specializing in American Craft Premium sake with passion, tradition, and innovation.