Japanese Film Festival 2026 opens in the Klang Valley on 10 September, with 14 films at RM10 and free tickets to claim

Fourteen Japanese films, a black-and-white Kurosawa, a director who turns 96 during the festival's first week, and every ticket RM10. The Japanese Film Festival is back in Malaysia, and The Star reported on 3 September that it opens in the Klang Valley on 10 September with a run that reaches Kota Kinabalu in October. For the price of a coffee it is the cheapest big-screen ticket in the country this month.

Where and when

The Star's report gives the route. The Klang Valley leg runs from 10 to 16 September at GSC Mid Valley, GSC 1 Utama and GSC MyTOWN. It then moves to GSC Gurney Plaza in Penang from 17 to 20 September and GSC Paradigm Mall in Johor Bahru from 24 to 27 September, before GSC CityONE Megamall in Kuching (8 to 11 October) and GSC Suria Sabah in Kota Kinabalu (15 to 18 October). GSC's own festival page gives the same dates and states that every ticket is priced at RM10. All films are in Japanese with English subtitles, The Star notes.

One director's life, in three films

The festival opens with Tokyo Taxi, the latest film by Yamada Yoji, as part of a retrospective of his six-decade career, The Star reports. The paper puts it as his 91st feature, a remake of the 2022 French film Driving Madeleine, about a taxi driver and an 85-year-old woman on a day-long journey through Tokyo. Two of his older films screen alongside it, A Distant Cry From Spring (1980) and Tora-san's Many Splintered Love (1981), and Yamada turns 96 on 13 September, in the middle of the Klang Valley run. The Star quotes Norihisa Tsukamoto, director of The Japan Foundation, Kuala Lumpur, on the choice: Yamada's works are "beloved by many, including the late (Malaysian director) Yasmin Ahmad". For anyone who grew up on Yasmin's films, that is the thread to pull.

The rest of the line-up, by GSC's festival page, which gives a genre and a running time for each film: Suzuki=Bakudan, a suspense film and at 137 minutes the longest in the programme; One Last Love Letter, which The Star says is inspired by a true story; Chimney Town: Frozen in Time, an anime adventure; You Are the Film, a comedy of 68 minutes that The Star calls sci-fi; Bring Him Down to a Portable Size; Samurai Vengeance, a period drama; Renjishi, 56 minutes of kabuki theatre; and Kurosawa Akira's Throne of Blood, in black and white. The Star singles out three films with strong female protagonists: Fujiko, Purehearted and a 4K remaster of Hula Girls.

GSC's page also lists a special screening of Kokuho on 9 September at GSC Mid Valley and GSC MyTOWN, the day before the festival proper, and a stamp rally across the screenings, with goodies and prizes for a full card.

The free tickets, and how fast they go

The Star's report is mostly about the free tickets. The Japan Foundation has released promo codes to be redeemed through GSC's website, app or e-kiosks, first come first served: 200 tickets for the Klang Valley on the code JFFTSK000TE2A, redeemable from 3 September; 200 for Penang on JFFTSP000GT88, from 10 September; and 100 for Johor Bahru on JFFTSJ000AO15, from 17 September. Two hundred tickets across a week of screenings in the Klang Valley will not last, so the codes may already be spent by the time you read this. The RM10 price applies either way, and at that price a double bill is a realistic evening.

Choosing, and getting there

If you are choosing one film, the opening night of Tokyo Taxi is the festival's own pick, and Throne of Blood is the one that will not come round again soon on a big screen. Anyone who wants the festival at its most unfamiliar has 56 minutes of kabuki in Renjishi.

The festival films are listed here under Coming Soon with a 9 September date at GSC, which is when the first of them appears in the chains' listings; sessions for each will show on the film's page as GSC publishes them. The three Klang Valley cinemas have pages of their own here, with directions and what else is on: GSC Mid Valley, GSC 1 Utama and GSC MyTOWN.