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Meet the former players of the Japanese women’s volleyball team with seemingly supernatural powers on the courts, in Julien Faraut's mesmerising new film.
Meet the former players of the Japanese women’s volleyball team, known as the ‘Witches of the Orient’ for their seemingly supernatural powers on the courts – including a staggering 258-match winning streak.
Now in their 70s, they reunite around a dinner table, sifting through the facts and fables of their careers – from the early days as a workers’ team at a textile factory in Osaka, up to their triumph at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Director Julien Faraut (John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection), the maverick new master of the archive sports doc, has created a mesmerising portrait of ‘the Witches’. Striking 16mm colour reels of the team in training complements previously unseen match footage, which Faraut splices with a montage of vintage manga and anime of the team, all set to a rhythmic original score.
