Today marks the beginning of the 13th Japan Filmfest Hamburg with the world premier of Black Dawn, based on the successful Japanese tv-series Gaiji Keisatsu. In the wake of the great 2011 earthquake terrorists are planning an attack on a nuclear reactor and it’s up to this special police force to stop them. The movie will be running in the Metropolis Cinema, which is one of the festival’s 4 venues. All of them are located in convinient distances to one another and considering the weather report for the next days, I’ll definitely bring my bike with me for quick trips from one cinema to the next.
The festival will go on until the 27th and I’m already planning to visit quite a few films in addition to the ones where I’m going to hold the opening speech. So if any of you would like to meet me there, just check my personal timetable below
23rd of May:
- 20.00 Black Dawn (Metropolis Cinema)
25th of May:
- 15.00 Sumire Ningyo + In Sunny Family (Metropolis Cinema)
- 17.00 About the Pink Sky (Metropolis Cinema)
- 22.00 Zombie Ass (3001 Cinema)
26th of May:
- 13.45 Children who chase lost Voices from deep below (Metropolis Cinema)
- 16.00 Sukiyaki (Metropolis Cinema)
- 18.00 Godzilla vs. Biollante (Metropolis Cinema)
- 20.15 Godzilla vs. King Ghidora (Metropolis Cinema)
27th of May:
- 10.00 Movie breakfast at the Projektor Cinema
I hope to see a lot of you in the movie theaters with me to enjoy the Japanese cinema we’re presenting this year. This year’s selection offers a broad range of different films for everyone, so if you’re interested in Japan or Japanese movies you should definitely find some film to fit your taste. Let’s enjoy the festival!

Have fun and give us some good movie tips!
Thanks!
The opening movie was a bit disappointing, sadly. For a thriller or police movie, it was lacking some tension and a lot of the plot twists seemed a bit artificial and unfounded from a viewers perspective. Couple that with too much focus on character development and the movie got a bit boring in parts and felt like it dragged on for too long in the end. Quite an average movie, I’d say. So don’t go searching for it, if you’re not particularly interested in it.
Today should be more interesting though