The 76th annual Cannes Film Festival wrapped up on May 27, and among the winners list, Koji Yakusho and Yuji Sakamoto from Japan have both won awards. Koji Yakusho won the Best Actor Award for his performance in Wim Wenders “Perfect Days”, making him the first Japanese actor since Yuya Yagira in 2004 to take home the best actor award. “Perfect Days” is Wim Wender’s first movie shot entirely in Japan and depicts the life of a toilet cleaner, Hirayama (played by Koji Yakusho) in Shibuya, Tokyo. Other cast members include Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano, Yamada Aoi, Yumi Asou, Sayuri Ishikawa, Min Tanaka, and Tomokazu Miura. Meanwhile, Yuji Sakamoto won the Best Screenplay Award for “Monster” directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda. The victory for “Monster” made it the first time in two years since Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” that a Japanese film won the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival. “Monster,” which also won the Queer Palm Award at the film festival, is a story about a quarrel between children in a suburban school that blows up and the media becomes involved. Sakura Ando, Eita Nagayama, Souya Kurokawa, and Yota Hiiragi are among the cast members, with songs composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto before his passing in March 2023.
