The best movie adaptations of Drive My Car author Haruki Murakami’s works, from Norwegian Wood to Hear the Wind Sing
- Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s adaptation of Murakami’s short story Drive My Car is currently proving a big success on this year’s awards circuit
- Murakami’s most famous work, the novel Norwegian Wood, was brought vibrantly to life in the hands of talented Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung in 2010
Arguably Japan’s most internationally celebrated living author, 73-year-old Haruki Murakami has penned more than a dozen novels and countless short stories, which have become runaway bestsellers both at home and around the world.
Murakami’s stories have a tendency to focus on solitary male protagonists who harbour an appreciation for Western music and culture, especially jazz and classic rock ‘n’ roll, and become swept up in whimsical mysteries that often stray into the realm of the fantastic.
Despite his decades of continued success, however, remarkably little of Murakami’s output has been reworked for the big screen. Those adaptations that do exist draw from his short stories more frequently than his novels.
With Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s adaptation Drive My Car currently proving a continued success on the awards circuit, and composer-turned-filmmaker Pierre Foldes’ interpretation of the anthology Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman currently in production, we take a look at the best feature film versions of Murakami’s work currently available.
1. Hear the Wind Sing (directed by Kazuki Omori, 1982)
While Murakami would all but dismiss this 1979 debut novel as immature and flimsy, Omori’s film does an excellent job of capturing the tone and flavour of Murakami’s world view.
