This one of my favourite theaters in Tokyo. I've often posted about it, but I think I never gave it a proper introduction, so here goes. Cinema Vera shows only retrospective program. About 65% of the program is devoted for Japanese film retrospectives, which cover anything from Sonny Chiba to Toei Jitsuroku Yakuza films and Nagisa Oshima. The rest is for foreign films ranging from Italian Neo-Realism to Russian Cinema and silent movies.
All program is played in double features with the same two films playing back to back from 11 am to around 10 pm. As common for theaters that play double features, there are no screening specific tickets but rather entrance tickets that allow you to enter anytime between the films. You can watch both films, or just one if you don't care for the other.
Cinema Vera has a pretty good medium size screen (6.8 x 2.9m). As for 2017, about 75% of the Japanese program plays in 35mm. This depends on the studio, though. I have never seen a digital screening of a Toei film; they've all been film screenings. However, with Nikkatsu you get about 70% film and 30% digital, and with Shintoho you get about 15% film and 85% digital screenings. The digital screenings can be anything from DVD to HD DCP. The film prints are like those of most other theaters; some are amazing, most are fine, some are poor (Shin bungeiza is the same, while National Film Center and Laputa Asagaya tend to have only great prints).
The lobby isn't especially beautiful but they always decorate it with original posters (including some very rare ones) for the current program. The screening room which has 142 seats is pretty good with relatively comfortable seats and usually movie soundtrack played during the breaks. Like in all Japanese theaters of this kind, the audience generally behaves very well, but there's been an increase of irritating hipsters (the worst of whom come to see old movies mainly to laugh at them... I pretty much wanted to kill the young woman who was laughing at Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri) in the audience. However, you don't run into them often and if you're able to attend screenings on weekdays during daytime, you can avoid them almost certainly. They only show up occasionally for evening screenings, usually during weekends.
Examples of past program
Sonny Chiba Festival (24 films incl. Wolfguy, Army Intelligence 33, Jail Breakers, The Street Fighter, Tokyo daijishin magnitude 8.1...)
Teruo Ishii retro (24 films, incl. Horrors of Malformed Men, Joy of Torture, Yakuza's Law, Orgies of Edo, Prisoner's Black List, Japanese Hell...)
Norifumi Suzuki retro (19 films, incl. Ninja's Mark, Sex & Fury, Killing Machine, Roaring Fire, Star of David, School of the Holy Beast...)
Toei Jitsuroku Yakuza retro (19 films, incl. Okinawa Yakuza War, Cops vs Thugs, Graveyard of Honor, Japan Organized Crime Boss...)
Meiko Kaji retro (19 films, incl. Lady Snowblood, Yakuza Graveyard, Women's Police, Jailhouse 41, Sex Hunter...)
Tatsumi Kumashiro retro (24 films, incl. Rolling on the Road, Front Row Life, Failed Youth, Yakuza Goddess: Lust and Honor...)
Noboru Tanaka retro (20 films, incl. Monster Woman '88, Noboru Ando's Filthy Escape into Sex, Village of Doom, She Beast Market....)
Chusei Sone retro (24 films, incl. Taiyo no kizuato, Hakuchu no onna gari, Red Violation, Red Classroom, Lust Under Uniform, Hellish Love...)
Shogoro Nishimura retro (14 films, incl. 6 early mainstream films, like Yakuza Native Ground and Tokyo Streetfighting...)
Meika Seri retro (13 films, incl. Red Light District: Gonna Get Out, Shitakari Hanjirô: (Maruhi) kannon o sagase, 13 Steps of Maki...)
Piranha Gang retro (18 films, incl. Torn Priestess, Haunted Turkish Bathhouse, Female Ninjas: In Bed With The Enemy, Okinawa Yakuza War...)
Producer Kei Ijichi retro (18 films, incl. Lost Chapter of Snow: Passion, The Man Who Stole the Sun, Retreat Through the Wet Wasteland...)
Producer Kanji Amao retro (17 films, incl. Tokugawa Sex Ban, Terrifying Girls' High School, Insane Sex Tribe, The Boxer ...)
The Violent 90s retro (17 films, incl. Dead or Alive, Rainy Dog, Score, A Night in Nude, Gonin, Boiling Point, Pornostar ...)
Sadao Nakajima retro (24 films, incl. Aesthetics of a Bullet, Kunoichi ninpo, Cold Wind Monjiro, Tokyo-Seoul-Bangkok, Sukeban 5...)
Ichiro Araki retro (15 films, incl. Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs, Delicate Skillful Fingers, Journey to Japan, Neon kurage...)
Noboru Ando retro (20 films, incl. Account of the Ando Gang: Killer Younger Brother, True Account of Ginza Tortures, The Wolves...)
Lobby and ticket counter





The screening room is there...


Sonny Chiba

