Zeze Takahisa’s ‘Sukiyaki’ to Open Tokyo Film Festival

The 39th edition Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) will open on Oct. 26 with a gala screening of Zeze Takahisa’s music drama Sukiyaki. Festival organizers also revealed that Yeon Sang-ho‘s zombie action horror film Colony will close this year’s event on Nov. 4.

Based on true events, Sukiyaki tells the story behind the famed Japanese pop song “Sukiyaki,” sung by crooner Kyu Sakamoto. The song topped the charts in a forward-looking post-war Japan but remarkably became a global phenomenon, holding the No.1 spot on U.S. Billboard charts for three consecutive weeks in 1963. The film, which is a sure-fire bet to be a hit when it opens in Japanese theaters on Dec. 25, depicts the history-making collaboration between the song’s composer Nakamura Hachidai (Okada Junichi), lyricist Ei Rokusuke (Matsuzaka Tori), and Sakamoto (Nakano Taiga).

“Sukiyaki tells the dramatic stories of three artists who inspired people in postwar Japan, interwoven with a collection of musical masterpieces. We are delighted to open the festival with this moving film, which stars three of today’s most prominent Japanese actors,” said Ichiyama Shozo, TIFF’s programming director.

TIFF’s closing film this year will be the wonderfully inventive Korean zombie film Colony, that that wowed genre fans when it premiered in the Midnight Screenings section of the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. The film tells the story of a biological weapon being unleashed inside a Seoul skyscraper that turns the people trapped inside the building into a deadly zombie hive mind. Colony was a huge hit when it was released in South Korean cinemas and won plaudits from critics. The movie comes from Yeon, the director behind Korean classics such as Train to Busan, Seoul Station and Peninsula. The prolific filmmaker also created the hit Netflix shows Hellbound and Parasyte: The Grey.

“Colony delivered the greatest excitement and emotional impact among the films at this year’s
Cannes,” said Ichiyama. “While an overwhelming number of zombie films have been produced, this film makes us realize that the genre still possesses untapped potential.”

Additionally, TIFF has also announced that it will screen Takashi Yamazaki‘s Godzilla Minus Zero as a special Centerpiece screening at the festival. The hotly anticipated film, a followup to the Oscar-winning global box office smash Godzilla Minus One, has the distinction of being the first Japanese production to be filmed for Imax. The logline for the film reads, “War reduced Japan to zero, and Godzilla plunged it even further, into minus territory. Two yearshave passed since then, and the country has faced agonizing struggles to achieve recovery andfinally return to normalcy. But just as humanity is clinging to a hard-won peace, a new threatstrikes, crushing hope in an instant.”

Said Ichiyama, “Godzilla Minus Zero is a true sequel to Godzilla Minus One, one of the standouts in the Godzilla series, and it brings a powerful new interpretation of Godzilla, delivering a level of surprise that far exceeds expectations. It is a masterpiece that was truly meant to be made in these challenging times.”

TIFF 2026 runs from Oct. 26 through to Nov. 4.