Mark Schilling - The Japan Times

November 23, 2024

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Mark Schilling

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Mar 22, 2017

Marty Gross and 'The Lovers' Exile'

At various times and places in his four-decade career, Canadian native Marty Gross has been a potter, art teacher, film director and a producer, with most of his personal and professional roads leading back to Japan.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 15, 2017

'Slavemen': Men enslaved by juvenile fantasies

Noboru Iguchi would seem to be in the enviable position, at least to his mostly male fan base, of doing exactly what he likes and never having to grow up. A veteran director of low-budget exploitation films, Iguchi has an unabashedly adolescent obsession with short-skirted schoolgirls, spandex-clad superheroes,...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Mar 10, 2017

Fukada's filmmaking a breath of fresh air

Koji Fukada's black comedy "Hospitalite" ("Kantai") won best film in the Tokyo International Film Festival's Japanese Eyes section in 2010 and since then he has become accustomed to stepping up on stages to receive prizes for his work.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 8, 2017

'Bring on the Melody': The heroic way to strike up the band

Zero-to-hero movies, usually about athletes or musicians or other folks engaged in something competitive and cinematic (baseball, yes; darts, no), are a staple of the film business in Japan. One reason: Audiences here admire gaman — the perseverance the protagonists display in pursuit of their group...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 1, 2017

'Snow Woman': chillingly modern

The Japanese folklore story of the "Snow Woman" has been told in many places, in many ways, and in many versions, but best-known is that of Lafcadio Hearn, the Greek-Irish writer who published it in his 1904 collection, "Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 22, 2017

Kanji Furutachi: Reacting to Japan's film industry

Over the years I've heard many complaints about the bad acting in Japanese films, from the hammy emoting of over-indulged veterans to the amateurish turns of "idols" cast more for their agency connections than any perceptible talent. I've added to this chorus of negativity, but I've also noticed that...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Feb 22, 2017

Asian Film Festival unspools in Osaka

Why go to Osaka to see films? I may sound like an insufferable Tokyo snob asking this, but given all the hundreds of movies on offer in the nation's capital, it's worth answering to justify the shinkansen ticket.

CULTURE / Film

Feb 22, 2017

'Close-Knit': The pride that breaks the prejudice

Japan would seem to be a paradise for LGBT people. Transgender "talents" have been appearing regularly on Japanese TV for decades and LGBT folks can walk the streets here with little fear.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 15, 2017

'One Week Friends': Groundhog day in the 'friend zone'

Someday soon someone is going to come up with an algorithm for commercial seishun eiga (youth films). Plug in the variables — teenaged love in its more innocuous variations being first and foremost — and pop out a script for another hit.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 8, 2017

'Survival Family': Soft-pedaling through dystopia

To Hollywood, "dystopian future" usually means invading aliens, exotic technology and gigantic explosions. Shinobu Yaguchi's "Survival Family" posits an alternative, more mundane cause of civilizational collapse: Japan's electric grid suddenly freezes up, like a laptop that's been doused with hot coffee....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 1, 2017

'The 100th Love With You': Happily stuck in a time-travel groove

Time travel is and will forever be a fantasy, physicists say. But fantasies can tell us more about human longings and dreams than dull facts, can they not? Despite doubting science types, time-travel-themed films have long constituted a thriving, sub-genre in Japan, as they do elsewhere.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Feb 1, 2017

Hiroki Matsukata: a gangster farewell

Hiroki Matsukata, who died at age 74 on Jan. 21, may have been born into an acting family — his father was jidaigeki (historical drama) actor Jushiro Konoe — but in his yakuza films for the Toei studio in the 1960s and '70s, Matsukata's portrayals of feral-but-charming hoods seemed to boil up off...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 28, 2017

Publishing pioneer Kikuko Ireton introduced the world to Japanese film

Kikuko Ireton, who co-founded "Movie/TV Marketing," a pioneering English-language trade journal about the domestic film industry, died in Tokyo on Thursday from complications of pneumonia.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 25, 2017

'Honnouji Hotel': Drama on the wrong side of history

Is Haruka Ayase the Japanese version of Anne Hathaway? In everything from their perky public personas and sterling work ethic to their toothy smiles and flawless complexions, the two stars symbolize a type of good-girl perfection. And yet they also rub some imperfect types the wrong way, though Hathaway...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 19, 2017

Sion Sono swan dives into Shinjuku's chaos

Celebrated abroad for films that mash up everything from extreme sex and gore to Christian imagery and classical music, Sion Sono has emerged as one of the most distinctive directors in Japanese cinema this century.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 18, 2017

Shinya Tsukamoto and the song of 'Silence'

Since his early films, such as "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" (1989) and "Tetsuo II: Body Hammer" (1992), pioneered the cyberpunk genre with a crazed energy and invention, Shinya Tsukamoto has had a reputation as Japanese cinema's outlaw. While doing the occasional work for hire, he has stayed outside the industry...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 18, 2017

'Hamon: Yakuza Boogie': Dancing around the gangster issue

Over the years, acquaintances of mine have boasted of their brushes with local gangsters. But few, I would wager, have become pals with one. Yakuza and katagi (straight citizens) tend to move in separate circles, with the former often viewing the latter as sheep to be fleeced or chickens to be plucked....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 11, 2017

'A Drop from Tomato': Planting the seeds of reconciliation

For independent filmmakers from elsewhere in Asia with high censorship or distribution hurdles, Japan must look like paradise. Last year, most of the 581 local films released here were low-budget indie titles. Hardly any of their makers got rich, but at least their films saw the theatrical light of day....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 4, 2017

'Our Meal for Tomorrow': Changing roles in romantic drama

Gender-bending comedy certainly exists in Japanese films, though it may not be mainstream. In Yosuke Fujita's "Fuku-chan of FukuFuku Flats" ("Fukufukuso no Fukuchan," 2014), popular female TV comedian Miyuki Oshima starred as a male house painter who becomes allergic to the opposite sex after being jilted...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Jan 4, 2017

'Tampopo' has blown back to our screens

Released in 1985, Juzo Itami's "Tampopo" was famously a flop in Japan, but a hit abroad, especially in the United States, where it became the second-highest-earning Japanese film ever. This "noodle Western" about a rough-hewn truck driver (Tsutomu Yamazaki) who helps a spunky widow (Nobuko Miyamoto)...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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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