KARACHI, Dec 8: The three-day Karachi International Film Festival 2013 organised by the Dawn Media Group kicked off on Sunday with the screening of two Japanese films in collaboration with the consulate general of Japan at the Mohammad Ali Jinnah University Campus-3 auditorium.

Director Masayaki Suo in ‘Sumo Do, Sumo Don’t’ (released in 1992) takes on several subjects such as the dying of a traditional sport, merchandising of sports, career dilemmas and foreign influence over Japanese culture.

All these issues were framed in the 105-minute comedy feature without making it heavy-duty for the viewers who were laughing uncontrollably during several comedic moments interspersed throughout ‘Sumo Do, Sumo Don’t’.

The film centers around Shuhei, a student of the Kyoritsu University, who is asked to join the university’s Sumo club by his thesis supervisor Professor Anayama, a former grand Sumo champion. Other volunteers also join the club for various reasons. One wants to feel happy, another thinks Sumo has certain discipline and an English boy studying in the university’s economics department joins for he is promised free meals and space in the dormitory.

The volunteers are shown struggling with the garb of a Sumo wrestler which basically consists of only a loincloth or mawashi. These volunteers are nowhere close to the physique of a Sumo wrestler nor do they possess the strength and from the looks of it have no desire to ever pursue it seriously but Anayama wants the club to survive somehow even if it means recruiting puny volunteers.

The plotline from there on is pretty much predictable as is expected of sports film genre. The underdogs which in this case are the Sumo club volunteers are initially routed mercilessly by their much stronger counterparts, eventually something snaps within them and they are motivated to fight back. The coach or in this case Anayama seeing their will to fight back takes them on and trains them in the art of Sumo wrestling and then they go on to make a strong comeback.

What made this film such a riveting and mirthful watch was the cast of volunteers, the centerpiece of ‘Sumo Do, Sumo Don’t’. Aoki, a Sumo enthusiast volunteering at the club for the last four years but has the trots every time he has to face a contestant.

The actor who enacted Aoki was hysterically funny. Haruo, the teenage girls’ fantasy post the airing of a TV programme about their Sumo club, has a unique way of fighting his opponents. Another surprising volunteer is an adorable looking girl, Masako, who according to Anayama has at least the looks of a Sumo wrestler unlike the other volunteers. She too makes for an interesting case study in the movie, questioning the all-male Sumo wrestling sport.

The next film was in complete contrast to the above. The 1988 movie Tombstone of the Fireflies was a heartrending movie set during the bombing of Kobe, Japan, in 1945. It touches upon the after effects of war that include the senseless killing of people, sufferings of the victims particularly children and the relationship of a brother and a sister who under unique circumstances have to behave like adults.

An animated one, the film began with an air-raid on Kobe, in which a teenage boy Seita and his four-year-old sister Setsuko are separated from their mother. The bombing by the Americans is so severe that their entire neighbourhood is burnt and people are charred to death. Their mother is severely injured and soon dies. The children’s father is not around because as a naval officer he is in one of the ships defending Japan against the enemy. Initially taken in by a relative who mistreats them, the children decide to go on their own, trying to survive in the harsh world.

The character of Setsuko, the four-year-old sister, was accurately illustrated and hence was endearing. Whether she is crying for her mother, or playing in the sea waves with her brother or sucking on sour drops or catching fireflies, the animators did a fine job with Setsuko.