Liza, the fox fairy

Movie
German title	Liza, the fox fairy
Original title	Liza, a rókatündér
Country of production	Hungary
original language	Hungarian
Publishing year	2015
length	98 minutes
Rod
Director	Károly Ujj Mészáros
script	Károly Ujj Mészáros ; Bálint Hegedűs
production	Istvan Major
music	Dániel Csengery ; Ambrus Tövisházi
camera	Péter Szatmari
cut	Judit Czakó
occupation
	Mónika Balsai: Liza; David Sakurai: TomyTani; Szabolcs Bede Fazekas: Zoltán; Zoltán Schmied: Henrik; Piroska Molnár: Ms. Márta; Antal Cserna: Károly; Gábor Reviczky: Commissioner; Mariann Kocsis: Hilda; Ági Gubík: Inge; Győző Szabó: Johnny;

Liza, the fox fairy ( Hungarian Liza, a rókatündér ) is a Hungarian black comedy from 2015 by director Károly Ujj Mészáros.

The film contains elements from Japanese mythology . The main character, played by Móni Balsai, thinks that she is a kitsune , a fox fairy. Other actors in the film are David Sakurai, Szabolcs Bede-Fazekas and Zoltán Schmied. The film was supported by the Hungarian National Film Fund, the producer was István Major. The film music was written by Dániel Csengery, the Japanese-language songs were composed by Ambrus Tövisházy, the text is by Toda Eiko.

In the first 6 weeks, 74,000 people wanted to see Liza, the fox fairy, in Hungarian cinemas.

action

Liza is a young nurse from Budapest . For a long time she has been looking after Mrs. Márta, the widow of the Japanese ambassador. From her, Liza learns a lot about Japanese culture and learns the language. When she gets a day off for her birthday, she decides to find her true love. The ghost of the Japanese singer Tomy Tany, her only friend, helps her in this search. One misfortune follows another. All suitors die sooner or later. Together with Tomy Tany she discovers that she is one of the cursed Japanese fox fairies. In their endeavor to break the curse, they draw the attention of the police, especially Inspector Zoltán, to themselves.

occupation

Móni Blasai: Liza

She is a 30 year old, naive, innocent nurse. She has been looking after the Japanese ambassador's widow for many years, so she rarely has the opportunity to go out. She doesn't know about politics or bureaucracy, so the names of the celebrities don't tell her anything. In her spare time she only reads Japanese penny literature or talks to her best friend, the ghost Tomy Tani.

David Sakurai: Tomy Tani

Tomy Tani is the ghost of a dead Japanese rock 'n' roll singer who appeared at Ms. Márta's apartment 6 years ago. He is Liza's only friend. Since only she can see him, they spend their days together. But she shouldn't trust him because he's not the good friend he seems to be. He wants Liza just to himself and would do anything to achieve that goal.

Szabolcs Bede-Fazekas: Policeman Zoltán

Zoltán, a taciturn policeman with a calm personality, recently moved to town. When he has the opportunity, he only listens to Finnish country music. When the police notice that men who have to do with Liza are dying, his boss orders him to keep his eyes on the suspicious Liza. So he makes the decision to rent a room in Liza's apartment.

Zoltán Schmied: Henrik

Henrik is a relative of Mrs. Marta and a womanizer. After the widow's death, he is the only one in her family who is nice to Liza. Liza is slowly starting to feel a little more than friendship for him, but he's not all of the good intentions that Liza sees.

music

The music tries to reinforce the fairytale impression of the film. Almost every character has its own musical theme: Liza, Tomy, policeman Zoltán, the men in love, the fox fairy, the deaths, etc. Tomy's songs had to be recomposed by Ambrus Tövisházy because the producer was unable to obtain the rights to the original Japanese pieces receive. Other pieces were composed by Dániel Csengery.

Tövisházy completed the songs in 2011. However, the director asked for several versions, as he thought Tövisházy's music was too harmonious. To achieve the perfect result, Tövisházy was inspired by Asian music. The interpreter Toda Eiko wrote the Japanese text. She was only given the topic, the exact text she was allowed to determine herself. In the version used for the film, Móni Balsai and Ambrus Tövisházy sing the duet.

criticism

International critics referred to Liza several times as the Hungarian Amélie and drew connections to the style of Wes Anderson .

The largest Hungarian film database is pleased to welcome a Hungarian comedy in its review, in which "[...] the image, the joke, the style create a coherent overall impression". In the opinion of Miklós Fáy, a journalist for the Hungarian newspaper Népszabadság, “there is no perfect film, but Liza is very close”.

In Hungary, Liza, the fox fairy, became one of the ten most popular films and was also shown in Japanese cinemas.

Awards

Liza has been screened at both Hungarian and international film festivals, for example in Spain , Portugal , the Netherlands , Belgium , Sweden and Canada , and has won numerous prizes. Liza received the audience award at both the Cellar Door Festival and the Monster of Film Festival.

The jury of the Hungarian Film Weeks awarded Liza, the fox fairy, in seven categories, including “Best Film”, “Best Director” and “Best Actress”. Ujj Mészáros received the “Best First Film” award from the Organization of Hungarian Film Critics.