{Singapore Premiere}
> WATCH THE TRAILER (Age-restricted video)
THU 27 SEP | 7:00pm*
JAPAN 2016
70 mins
R21
Consumer Advice: Mature content
Japanese with English subtitles
Directed by Norhiro Niwatsukino
*There will be a post-screening discussion with the film director
Synopsis
Ninko, a young diligent Buddhist monk, has a serious problem: women (and some men too) are attracted to him. After a series of troubling encounters with infatuated women, Ninko starts a journey to seek purification and to escape from his troubles.
Bizarre and sometimes kitschy, the film follows Ninko as he comes to grip with the anguish of his hyper-sexualised world, mirroring our modern day society where we are constantly bombarded by sexuality and its allure. Suffering of Ninko turns on sensuality to overload and asks “does the suffering of Ninko come from external sources or from his internal weaknesses?”
Director’s Bio
Born April 6, 1981, Norihiro Niwatsukino started making films while attending the Kyushu Institute of Design in Fukuoka. After graduating from the Graduate School of Design at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Niwatsukino moved to Tokyo and started working as a freelance director and also a screen writer. He has directed various video works includes live-action, music video, animation. Suffering of Ninko (2016) is his first feature film.
Director’s Statement
New and unexpected film experience is what I always want to offer to my audience. I want to show them what they have never seen before. I want to lure them into an unknown world. In order to achieve this, I played with the genre and features of Suffering of Ninko. I also wanted to add a layer to the experience of the main character, Ninko, by bringing his inner world as a live-action, a Ukiyo-e (a Japanese traditional woodblock print) animation and a mandala animation.
