Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

 

WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY

Meiko is startled when she realizes that the man who her best friend starts to have feelings for, is her ex; Sasaki plots to trick his college professor out of revenge, using his class-friend-with-benefits Nao, while Natsuko encounters a woman who seems to be someone from her past, leading the two to confess the feelings they have harbored in their hearts – stories about the complexities of relationships, told through coincidences that happen in the lives of women in love.

  • International Title: WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY
  • Original Title: GUZEN TO SOZO (偶然と想像)
  • Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
  • Year: 2021
  • Country: Japan
  • Genre: Drama
  • Length: 121 min
  • Dialogues: Japanese
  • Cast: Kotone Furukawa, Ayumu Nakajima, Hyunri, Shibukawa, Shouma Kai, Fusako Urabe
  • Logline: An unexpected love triangle, a failed seduction trap and an encounter that results from a misunderstanding

Selective list of festivals and awards: 71st Berlinale – Official Competition

Director’s biography: After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Hamaguchi worked in the commercial film industry for a few years before entering the graduate program in film at Tokyo University of the Arts.

He made a festival debut in 2008 with his graduation film Passion at San Sebastian and Tokyo FILMeX. He has been constantly working on films since then.

In 2015, his 317-minute feature film Happy Hour won major awards at numerous film festivals starting at Locarno Film Festival. His first commercial film Asako I & II was selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. He is also the screenwriter on Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy, which won the Silver Lion at the 2020 Venice Film Festival