Donald Richie - The Japan Times

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Donald Richie

Donald Richie began writing regularly for The Japan Times in 1954, initially writing film and stage reviews. In the early '70s he began writing book reviews and continued contributing until 2009. He wrote more than 40 books on Japanese aesthetics, and he is widely considered the pre-eminent expert on Japanese cinema.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel

Feb 26, 2002

The other treasures of Angkor

SIEM REAP, Cambodia An enormous complex located on a vast wooded plain, Cambodia's spectacular Angkor was built between the ninth and the 14th centuries by the Khmers as an administrative and religious center. From here, the early Khmer kings ruled over a vast territory that extended from what is now...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Feb 24, 2002

I want my DVD: The word is out on the small screen

Now that our shelves contain a lot more than books -- CD-ROMs, VHS tapes, DVDs -- it is worth reconsidering a question that occasionally interests the resident foreigner: How do you find Japanese films with English subtitles?

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Feb 3, 2002

Sue Sumii looks back on a life well spent

MY LIFE: Living, Loving and Fighting, by Sue Sumii; interviews by Masuda Reiko, translated by the Ashi Translation Society, with an introduction by Livia Monnet. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 108 pp., $29.95 (paper) Sue Sumii (1902-97) is remembered for the multipart...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jan 27, 2002

Suffering for one's art

BUSHIDO: Legacies of the Japanese Tattoo, by Takahiro Kitamura and Katie M. Kitamura, with photos by Jai Tanju. Atglen, Pa., Schiffer Publishing, 2000. 160 pp., color and b/w plates, $29.95 (paper) In this interesting and beautifully illustrated account of the Japanese tattoo, the authors' intent is...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jan 20, 2002

Murder and mass suicide? Now that's entertainment

CHUSHINGURA AND THE FLOATING WORLD: The Representation of Kanadehon Chushingura in Ukiyo-e Prints, by David Bell. Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 2001. 170 pp. with 41 b/w plates, 45 British pounds (cloth) One spring day in 1701 there was an altercation in Edo Castle. Perceiving insult, a local lord...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jan 13, 2002

Reassessing Kurosawa's neglected masterpiece

SEVEN SAMURAI: The Film by Akira Kurosawa, by Joan Mellen. London: British Film Institute, 2002, 96 pp., with many b/w photos, 8.99 British pounds (paper) The National Film Theater in London is currently presenting a two-month-long festival featuring the works of Akira Kurosawa. A number of other events...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Jan 6, 2002

Deconstructing Tokyo

INSIDER'S TOKYO, by Angela Jeffs. Times Books International (Singapore), 2001, 280 pp., with numerous maps and photographs, 2,100 yen (paper) Tokyo must have more foreign-language books devoted to it than any other major city -- not only the guides, which endlessly proliferate, but also serious books...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Dec 30, 2001

Rescuing Orientalism from the School of Said

FIGURING THE EAST: Segalen, Malraux, Duras and Barthes, by Marie-Paule Ha. Albany: State University of New York, 2000, 160 pp., $17.95 (paper) In its consideration of the East, the West has been accused of Orientalism, a theory developed by Edward Said to explain the way the West "constructs" the Orient...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Dec 23, 2001

On a slow boat to Bangkok

SLITHERING SOUTH: by Steve Van Beek. Hong Kong: Wind & Water, Inc., 2001. 430 pp. with map and glossary, $11.95. Sliding (or bumping) down the shallow Ping River, the long tributary that joins the Chao Phya and flows through Bangkok, Steve Van Beek pondered his odyssey. Having begun in the river's...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Dec 16, 2001

Japan's maverick monk

LETTING GO: The Story of Zen Master Tosui, translated and with an introduction by Peter Haskel. Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 2001, 168 pp. with woodcuts, $45 (cloth), $19.95 (paper) Tosui Unkei, the beloved and eccentric 17th-century Zen master, was, like Ikkyu Sojin 200 years before him, a decided...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Dec 2, 2001

Yosano's poetry in motion

TRAVELS IN MANCHURIA AND MONGOLIA, by Akiko Yosano, translated by Joshua A. Fogel. New York: Columbia University Press, 164 pp., with a map, $39.50 (cloth), $16 (paper) In 1928, the celebrated poet Akiko Yosano was invited to travel through Northeast Asia by the South Manchurian Railway Company.

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 25, 2001

When film told it like it was

THE BENSHI -- Japanese Silent Film Narrators, edited by the Friends of Silent Films Association, with essays by Tadao Sato and Larry Greenberg, and an interview with Midori Sawato. Tokyo: Urban Connections, 2001, 172 pp. with photographs, 1,500 yen (paper) Despite its name, no silent film was, of course,...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 18, 2001

Too much of a good thing

YAKUZA PERFUME, by Akahige Namban. New York: Blue Moon Books, 2001, 206 pp., $7.95 (paper). This curious book is an American-published pornographic novel that purports to be written by a Japanese. Though its main aim is to excite, its interest lies in the cultural assumptions it makes, these rendered...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 11, 2001

Mizoguchi's street of shame

RED-LIGHT DISTRICT, the film by Kenji Mizoguchi, translated and annotated by D.J. Rajakaruna. Colombo: S. Godage & Brothers, 2001. 182 pp., $12.50 (paper) Kenji Mizoguchi's last film, the 1956 "Akasen Chitai" ("Red-Light District," aka "Street of Shame") may not be one of his best pictures but it...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Nov 4, 2001

Cities that go with the flow

LEARNING FROM THE JAPANESE CITY: West Meets East in Urban Design, by Barrie Shelton. London: E. and F.N. Spon/Routledge, 2001, 210 pp., profusely illustrated, 42.50 British pounds (cloth) In this interesting study of Japanese urban space, the author writes that when he thinks of the Western city he envisions...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Oct 28, 2001

Absorbing and transforming the new

TRANSLATING THE WEST: Language and Political Reason in Nineteenth-Century Japan, by Douglas R. Howland. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001, 312 pp., $27.95 (paper) It is commonly assumed that Western ideas somehow wafted to Japan and there landed and took root. A moment's reflection, however,...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Oct 21, 2001

Playing to the home crowd

JAPANESE SPORTS: A History, by Allen Guttmann and Lee Thompson. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 310 pp., plates, 25. $50, cloth; $24.95, paper. When Commodore Perry arrived in Japan as an unwelcome guest in 1853, a small part of the initial interactions between the visitors and their reluctant...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Sep 23, 2001

Arcane lore as taught by the masters

BUDO SECRETS: Teaching of the Martial Arts Masters, by John Stevens. Boston/London: Shambhala, 2001, 116 pp., with illustrations, $19.95 The term "budo" is relatively recent one. After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the martial arts were no longer to be used in combat, but rather to be considered...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Sep 16, 2001

A theory in need of updating

THE ANATOMY OF SELF: The Individual Versus Society, by Takeo Doi. Translated by Mark A. Harbison. Forward by Edward Hall. Tokyo: Kodansha, Int., 2001 (1986), 168 pp., 1,800 yen. Takeo Doi, the man who made "amae" a household word, later wrote this book about "omote" and "ura" and their extensions,...

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Sep 9, 2001

New Sensationalism in the city

SHANGHAI, by Riichi Yokomitsu. Translated with a postscript by Dennis Washburn. Center for Japanese Studies, Ann Arbor; University of Michigan Press, 2001. 242 pp., $45 (cloth), $18.95 (paper). Riichi Yokomitsu's first novel, "Shanghai," was published in magazine installments between 1928 and 1931....

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