August at Akiko's
US Indies
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1h 15m
Directed by Christopher Makoto Yogi • Drama • With Alex Zhang Hungtai, Akiko Masuda • 2019 • 75 minutes
Armed with just his suitcase and a sax, cosmopolitan musician Alex Zhang Hungtai (from the band Dirty Beaches) returns home to the Big Island of Hawaii having been away for nearly a decade. Hungtai, playing a fictional version of himself, takes refuge in a Buddhist B&B with a woman named Akiko (Akiko Matsuda, playing herself). Alex’s experimental free jazz music at first collides with the bell sounds of Akiko’s meditation, but as the film evolves and a friendship develops, the two harmonize.
"Transcendently inventive" —Richard Brody, The New Yorker
"A soul-deep love letter to a state that Hollywood tends to more glibly romanticize" —Guy Lodge, Variety
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