Movie Time: The First Slam Dunk

Another film screening opportunity as we got to watch "The First SLAM Dunk" a film that will premiere for the first time on the East Coast on July 26th at the Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film in New York. A little history behind this film: This is the first new film in 33 years for the Slam Dunk series. This is also the directorial debut of the original creator of the series: Takehiko Inoue. The Slam Dunk series is a popular magna that ran from 1990 to 1996. For the fans of the original series this is a treat to behold. The film runs a little over 2 hours but when you watch it, it doesn't seem that long but we assumed it was covering all the ground it needed to.

The movie follows Ryoto Miyagi, a point guard for Shohoku High School who leads to school to the Inter-High School National Championship and faces the defending champions. Throughout the game Ryoto and his teammates go through their own personal struggles while on the court. The game is being played but in the minds of Shohoku High School they are a separate game to keep themselves in check and intact. Like we said before this is a 2 hour film but it is worth the ticket. The visuals and angles of game play is nothing short than amazing. As you get closeups of the players you would think that you are playing NBA2K or something. Even the zoom in and outs of the players as they shoot, rebound and dive in the crowd had that real game appeal. Ryoto is the main protagonist in here as he is grieving over the loss of his brother and when you see the flashbacks its curious how the animation team paid attention to detail to even show the high school that Ryoto's brother wanted to attend but now is his brother's opponent.

We love how even the teammates are involved in Ryoto's growth and becoming his peers. The music matched the emotions perfectly and when the film goes into hyperspeed you feel the manic energy of the players running back and forth chasing after each other for loose balls. The dialogue sets the tone as you almost match each character and think this is how they would sound in real life. We see why this is the opening night film to start the festival. A great choice and fantastic film that we think old fans would love and new fans would enjoy. To get tickets for the premiere screening go to https://japansociety.org/film/ Be sure to see us on the red carpet for the festival activities.