Tatsumi

Tatsumi celebrates the life and work of Yoshihiro Tatsumi-a manga pioneer who transformed the genre with cinematic inspiration and psychological depth. His youthful passion for comics blossomed into a means to support his family in postwar Osaka-but he became tired of producing whimsical children's tales like those of his idol Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy). In 1957 Tatsumi redefined the manga landscape with an adult-oriented genre that grappled with the darker aspects of Japanese life, which he called gekiga (dramatic pictures). In Tatsumi, Singaporean filmmaker and former comic artist Eric Khoo (Be With Me) brings Tatsumi's 2010 graphic memoir A Drifting Life and five of his classic stories to vivid, stunning life. An inventive animated tribute to a groundbreaking artist, the film is as gorgeous, shocking and darkly funny as the works themselves.