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November 22, 2024
 

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Kaori Shoji
Kaori Shoji writes about movies and movie-makers for the Film Page, plus takes a turn at the Bilingual Column. Biggest mistake of her career: taking the very dignified Nagisa Oshima to McDonald's for an iced coffee.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 14, 2009
'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas'
Forty years after the fall of the Third Reich, French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann made "Shoah," a 9 1/2-hour documentary about the Holocaust. The film still endures today as the definitive film on Nazism and the death camps.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 12, 2009
Putting the lie to the health of Japanese bodies
After decades of paying little attention to the needs of their bodies, the Japanese seem to be rediscovering themselves as flesh-and-blood beings who require proper physical care in order to lead happy and satisfying lives.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 7, 2009
'Transporter 3'
Luc Besson has taken it upon himself to build a little empire smack in the heart of the French film industry. It's a close approximation to a French Hollywood, specifically an action-genre Hollywood — and its getting bigger everyday. For mindless, gratuitous violence, nonsensical plots and endless...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 31, 2009
'Coco Chanel'
Simone de Beauvoir may have given us feminism, but Coco Chanel gave us the L.B.D. (Little Black Dress), which is, let's face it, a much more viable survival tool.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 24, 2009
'Bolt'
Brave, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Bolt is the canine equivalent of Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) of "The Truman Show" fame — he lives his whole life in a TV show but doesn't know it. And because he's a dog, the Kafka-esque/metaphysical angst that assailed Truman (once he discovered that his life is...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 17, 2009
'Clara Schumann'
"Clara Schumann" wears the mantle of a period love story with attractive distinction — touted as the tale of the feverish menage a trois between Clara (Martina Gedeck), her husband, Robert Schumann (Pascal Greggory), and his protege Johannes Brahms (Malik Zidi), there are plenty of steamy, corset-...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 10, 2009
'La Raggaza del Lago'
When the nude body of the beautiful 18-year-old Anna (Alessia Piovan) is discovered on the shores of a lake in the Italian Dolomite Alps, the local town recoils like a slapped hand then clenches itself like a fist, hiding any number of secrets and unspoken, unexpressed emotions.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 8, 2009
It's still tough being a man, but it's a whole new ball game
As a Japanese woman, I've always had this niggling suspicion that men had it better in my native land. They were encouraged and coddled and waited upon. They were allowed liberties that a female could only dream about. They considered entitlement a prerequisite, a birthright!
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 3, 2009
'Knowing'
What happened to Nicholas Cage? It's hard to connect him now with the beautifully boozed-out loser in "Leaving Las Vegas" — for which he bagged an Oscar, and which enshrouded him (for a couple of years at least) with that air of decadence and dandy so hard to find in an American actor. But soon after...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 26, 2009
'The Visitor'
Maybe it's just me, but "The Visitor" recalls the slight fear mixed with slight resentment, that tends to assail non-American citizens going through U.S. immigration. It seems the quickest and most hassle-free way out of the booth and through the exit, is to stress that you're only visiting — and will...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 19, 2009
'The Reader'
Between Kate Winslet and the (as yet) little known David Kross, who shovel coal into the veritable steamship that is "The Reader" and keep it running, full speed ahead.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 12, 2009
'Sagan'
As far as biopics go, "Sagan" is a fragmented and unsatisfactory rendition of a brilliant, fascinating life.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 10, 2009
The scent of poverty must be just so in Japan
When times are tough, the Japanese get going, or something to that effect. My grandfather always held that as a nation, we were much better at being poor than being rich — "Nihonjinga kane wo motsuto rokunakotoni naranai日本人が金をもつとろくなことにならない, Nothing good comes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 5, 2009
'I Come With the Rain'
Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung has a distinctive, high-contrast track record.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 29, 2009
'Star Trek'
The latest "Star Trek" is about sharing. And caring. And interspace harmony. It draws from a sincere, well-intended sentiment garnered from the voice over narrative of the original 1970s TV series by Gene Rodenberry: The Starship Enterprise wants to "explore new worlds" rather than conquer and occupy....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 22, 2009
'L'heure d'ete'
Moliere once wrote that the wonder of a French vacance lay in its "deep, profound dullness, those hours and hours of time, marked only by meals and interminable glasses of wine." A similar kind of wonder propels the intimate, endearingly smug "L'heure d'ete" (international title: "Summer Hours") —...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 15, 2009
'Angels & Demons'
How much work can you get done in five hours? That's the crucial question in "Angels & Demons," the sequel to the 2006 global megahit "The Da Vinci Code."
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 13, 2009
Being Nihontsū: Japanophiles in our own country
"Wakonyōsai (和魂洋才, the soul of a Japanese and the talents of a Westerner)" was a phrase once used to describe the ideal of the modern, enlightened Japanese. This perfect person supposedly combined the knowledge, logic and open-mindedness of the West with the principled restraint, sense of honor...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 8, 2009
'17 Again'
"Youth is wasted on the young" said playwright George Bernard Shaw when he was long past blooming cheeks and sowing wild oats — one imagines his creased face scrunched in bitter cynicism as he uttered those words. What would Shaw say if he saw "17 Again," the tailored-for-teens fable (saddled with...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 1, 2009
'Bangkok Dangerous'
Why are 21st-century cinema assassins so jaded? Even James Bond (and let's face it, he does rub out people for money) isn't exactly full of pep, carrying around, as he does, a lot of emotional baggage and seeming always to be stifling a sigh.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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