'Blonde' Courtesy of the Tokyo International Film Festival With Blonde, premiering this week in the Tokyo International Film Festival's main competition, rising 38-year-old director Yuichiro Sakashita delivers a sharp, quietly damning satire of conformity in Japan's education system. The film centers on a meek junior-high teacher (popular singer-turned-actor Takanori Iwata) whose life unravels when his students stage a "blonde-hair protest" against the school's highly restrictive and outdated rules - and social media rapidly morphs the modest revolt into a nationwide spectacle.