Black Ox (2025)

Singapore Premiere Dir. Tetsuichirô Tsuta Cast: Lee Kang-sheng, Fukuyo, Min Tanaka 2024 | Japan, Taiwan | Drama | 114 mins | Japanese with English subtitles | M18 (Nudity) There will be a virtual, post-screening Q&A with director Tetsuichirô Tsuta. Set in 19th-century Japan, during the Meiji period, when the country was transitioning towards modernization, BLACK OX explores the relationship between man and ox, inspired by the “Ten Ox-Herding Pictures”, a series of short poems and illustrations from the Zen Buddhism tradition that depict the path to enlightenment and spiritual awakening. Awards: Winner - Golden Firebird Award for Young Cinema (2025 Hong Kong International Film Festival); Nominee - Asian Future Best Film Award (2024 Tokyo International Film Festival) Programmer's Note: This is for slow cinema aficionados or folks looking for a meditative palate cleanser, away from the 'noise' and 'chaotic spectacle' of Hollywood and Asian blockbusters. This is also a spectacle but of a different kind, emphasising the elemental and sensorial immersion of body, mind, and soul, as Tsai Ming-liang regular Lee Kang-sheng plays a man who encounters an ox. Largely operating without dialogue and told in chapters inspired by Zen Buddhism's 'Ten Ox-Herding Pictures', one might liken this unique take on mortality, existence, nature, becoming, and transformation to the spiritual child of Abbas Kiarostami's 24 FRAMES (2017) and Hou Hsiao-Hsien's THE ASSASSIN (2015). (Eternality Tan, SFS Vice-Chair & Programming Director)