Filmmaker Ema Ryan Yamazaki follows a coach and his team as they try to win Japan's national high school baseball championship.Filmmaker Ema Ryan Yamazaki follows a coach and his team as they try to win Japan's national high school baseball championship.Filmmaker Ema Ryan Yamazaki follows a coach and his team as they try to win Japan's national high school baseball championship.
- Awards
- 1 nomination
Photos
Storyline
Did you know
- ConnectionsReferences Field of Dreams (1989)
Featured review
More than just a baseball tournament
This is an engaging and illuminating look at one of Japan's most important annual happenings, the national high school baseball championships. Much like our own March Madness, a large part of the nation is glued to their TV sets to see which high school team emerges victorious in the single-elimination tournament held at Koshien Stadium near Osaka. The film's director, Ms. Yamazaki, attended the screening I saw at the Japanese Information and Cultural Center in Washington. She and her crew spent much of 2018 embedded in the seasons of several teams as they tried to win their prefectural championship which would qualify them for the final rounds.
What makes this film so compelling is that you get to know two of the teams' head coaches. One of them is a hard-nosed, very old-school coach who is a strict disciplinarian, but has never made it out of the prefecture. The other is a protégé of his, a former assistant who has gone on to be very successful at a high school in another part of the country. The older coach actually sends his promising son to play for the younger one (to avoid the risk of unconscious favoritism).
As the movie proceeds, you also see the hard choices that the coaches have to make as to who will make the "A-team" that actually gets to play in games. You also get telling glimpses of the home life of the old-school manager--his wife who ruefully puts up with his long absences and his mother who wishes he would stop coaching and help run the family business. Finally, and most touchingly, you get to know a lot of the players-the seniors who have to set a good example for the nervous freshmen, and some players who try hard but just can't make the cut.
If Americans know anything about Koshien, it's that some of the pitchers for the winning teams have sacrificed their arms by trying to pitch every game. Major Leaguer Daisuke Matsuzaka famously threw 250 pitches to win a 17-inning game in the 2008 quarterfinals and then threw a no-hitter in the finals. Watching this film, you can see how that could happen. And you can also see how this all-consuming work ethic has produced some of the greatest players in the world. Speaking of which, current superstar Shohei Otani impressed the scouts by throwing 100 mph, but was left tearful as he lost an elimination game in 2012 while playing for the team coached by the younger manager in this film.
This film shows how the Koshien tournament, and high school baseball, reflect a lot of Japanese values--mostly for better but sometimes for worse. It's worth seeing even if you are not a baseball fan.
What makes this film so compelling is that you get to know two of the teams' head coaches. One of them is a hard-nosed, very old-school coach who is a strict disciplinarian, but has never made it out of the prefecture. The other is a protégé of his, a former assistant who has gone on to be very successful at a high school in another part of the country. The older coach actually sends his promising son to play for the younger one (to avoid the risk of unconscious favoritism).
As the movie proceeds, you also see the hard choices that the coaches have to make as to who will make the "A-team" that actually gets to play in games. You also get telling glimpses of the home life of the old-school manager--his wife who ruefully puts up with his long absences and his mother who wishes he would stop coaching and help run the family business. Finally, and most touchingly, you get to know a lot of the players-the seniors who have to set a good example for the nervous freshmen, and some players who try hard but just can't make the cut.
If Americans know anything about Koshien, it's that some of the pitchers for the winning teams have sacrificed their arms by trying to pitch every game. Major Leaguer Daisuke Matsuzaka famously threw 250 pitches to win a 17-inning game in the 2008 quarterfinals and then threw a no-hitter in the finals. Watching this film, you can see how that could happen. And you can also see how this all-consuming work ethic has produced some of the greatest players in the world. Speaking of which, current superstar Shohei Otani impressed the scouts by throwing 100 mph, but was left tearful as he lost an elimination game in 2012 while playing for the team coached by the younger manager in this film.
This film shows how the Koshien tournament, and high school baseball, reflect a lot of Japanese values--mostly for better but sometimes for worse. It's worth seeing even if you are not a baseball fan.
Details
- Runtime1 hour 34 minutes
- Color
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Top Gap
By what name was Koshien: Japan's Field of Dreams (2019) officially released in Canada in English?
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