The Kiyosu Conference

The Kiyosu Conference is a Japanese comedy-drama set in the Sengoku period, in the aftermath of Oda Nobunaga's forced suicide at Honnō-ji. With the warlord dead, four of his most powerful retainers gather at Kiyosu Castle to settle the question of who will succeed him. Katsuie Shibata, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, Nagahide Niwa and Tsuneoki Ikeda each bring their own ambitions to the table, and the meeting becomes a contest of negotiation and hidden agendas. The film presents the gathering as an early example of collective political decision-making in Japan.

Koki Mitani wrote and directed the film, which sits between Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald and All About Suomi in his directing career. The cast includes Koji Yakusho as Shibata, Yo Oizumi as Toyotomi, Fumiyo Kohinata as Niwa, Koichi Sato as Ikeda, Kyoka Suzuki as Oichi and Eisuke Sasai as Nobunaga Oda, among 21 credited performers. It was produced by Kazutoshi Wadakura and Kuga Maeda, with TOHO, Fuji Television Network and Cine Bazar behind it.

Released in November 2013, the film runs 135 minutes. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.4 from roughly 700 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7 from a much smaller sample of 26 votes. The audience response has therefore been moderate and steady rather than broad, with the two platforms reflecting different-sized groups of viewers.