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November 23, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2016
My Dad and Mr. Ito: No one can be daddy's girl forever
The opening of Yuki Tanada's new film "My Dad and Mr. Ito" promises a comedy of the quirky family variety.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 28, 2016
'Harmonium': Dangerously good family drama
The films of Koji Fukada have long wrapped ambitious themes in deceptively unassuming genre packages. His 2011 international breakout "Hospitalite" ("Kantai") begins as a quirky comedy but becomes a sharp-edged drama of deceptions and secrets. Last year's "Sayonara" starts as an offbeat essay in apocalyptic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 21, 2016
'Scoop!': Read all about it here
Japanese weekly scandal magazines are pond scum, are they not? Dishing up grainy paparazzi photos of the famous and powerful, accompanied by wink-wink stories about improprieties and crimes — alleged or exposed — they appeal to the lowest common denominator, with their only raison d'etre being sales...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 17, 2016
Yuki Tanada's new film sees the humor in societal changes
The Japanese women directors who have been gaining attention in the past two decades, beginning with frequent Cannes invitee Naomi Kawase, tend to be serious types, understandably. Their struggle for respect and recognition in a male-dominated industry is difficult enough — and goofy comedies are usually...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 14, 2016
'Someone's Xylophone': Yoichi Higashi hits an unusual tone
Yoichi Higashi has made everything from commercial hits to festival favorites in his five-plus decades as a director, while taking up politically sensitive subjects and unpopular issues. His 1992 smash "The Bridge with No River" ("Hashi no Nai Kawa") depicted the raw prejudice endured by burakumin outcasts...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Sep 14, 2016
Director Naomi Kawase celebrates her hometown with the Nara Film Festival
Film festivals can be the product of one person's passion, but that person is rarely a regular invitee to that most prestigious of festivals: Cannes. Director Naomi Kawase, who has both won Cannes prizes and sat on Cannes juries, fits that description as the executive director of the Nara International...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Sep 10, 2016
Producer Christian Storms: 'The currency of my life is experiences, not money'
American actor/director on the differences between Japanese and Hollywood productions and working as a guide.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 7, 2016
The delicate notes of 'Someone's Xylophone'
Japanese directors now routinely do dozens of media interviews to publicize their new films, especially if they are on the indie end of the spectrum. The stars of said films also sit down with the press, if not as commonly, but though I have been writing about local film folk since 1991, an interview...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 7, 2016
'Karate Kill': Kick back to a good old action film
Back in the 1990s, a British trade magazine sent me to Los Angeles every November to report on the American Film Market — then mostly an emporium of cheapo genre films, held at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. It was the heyday of the straight-to-video actioner and the doors of many sales suites were...
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Sep 7, 2016
The Yufuin Film Festival: a movie paradise on Earth
Before attending my first Yufuin Film Festival, which was held Aug. 24-28 this year, I wondered what attracted Japanese film folk — from nationally known actors to directors of zero-budget documentaries — to this town in northern Kyushu.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 31, 2016
'Your Name.': Makoto Shinkai could be the next big name in anime
Japanese animators have good reason to hate the label "new Miyazaki," meaning successor to animation genius Hayao Miyazaki, who retired from feature filmmaking in 2013. First, it saddles them with fan expectations that their films will resemble — or imitate — the master's. Second, their box-office...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 24, 2016
'Black Widow Business': Never too old for the marriage con
"There's no fool like an old fool." Yasuo Tsuruhashi's comedy "Black Widow Business" is a feature-length illustration of this venerable saying, though it also reflects present-day trends in an aging Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 17, 2016
'Yell For the Blue Sky': High school drama never really changes
The seishun eiga or "youth film" is one Japanese genre that doesn't travel well abroad. With only a few exceptions, these films assume a familiarity with the insular world of the Japanese high school (or, once in a while, junior high school) that outlanders are unlikely to possess. They also follow certain...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 10, 2016
'Rudolph the Black Cat': Curiosity helps this little black cat
Many Japanese films for kids are entries in venerable anime series belonging to multiplatform franchises. To their target audience they are pre-sold and, in their formulas, pre-seen. And that audience is by and large domestic. One big exception is "Stand By Me Doraemon," a 3-D CG anime starring a blue...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 3, 2016
Momoi is on fire in her new indie film 'Hee'
In her four-decade acting career Kaori Momoi has always been a free-spirited stand-out, indifferent to convention. But beneath her easygoing attitude and signature drawling delivery (which used to make me wonder what she had been ingesting before the cameras started rolling) was a thorough professionalism...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 3, 2016
'Shin Godzilla': The metaphorical monster returns
Watching "Shin Godzilla," Toho's reboot of its signature monster series, I couldn't help feeling sorry for the non-Japanese fans forced to read a blizzard of subtitles for this extremely talky and densely populated film, with a break every 10 minutes or so for Godzilla rampages — the real reason they...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 28, 2016
Our favorite monster returns to terrorize Japan in 'Shin Godzilla'
After 12 years in storage (or on Monster Island) a Japanese Godzilla is roaring again. Toho film studios has revived the world's favorite atomic-breathed monster in "Shin Godzilla," which is set for nationwide release today.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 27, 2016
Crowdfunding offers freedom to filmmakers
It's not easy making indie movies in Japan. The big studios only want commercial projects with proven fan appeal, usually based on hit manga, novels or TV dramas. Given the need, government funding schemes are paltry, with much of the money going to films about safe, uncontroversial subjects.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 27, 2016
'The Dork, the Girl and the Douchebag': The hard-hitting brutality of gang life
Some filmmakers will go to any end for their art. Werner Herzog notoriously put cast and crew through hell in the making of "Fitzcarraldo" (1982) in the Peruvian jungle, with hundreds of indigenous people hired to drag a 320-ton steamship over a hill with real ropes and real injuries.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 20, 2016
'Ken and Kazu': The yakuza isn't all guns and glamour
Most films about the yakuza depict its members as fully formed and distinctly different from the general run of humanity, somewhat like action figures just out of the box. The reality, as Hiroshi Shoji's "Ken and Kazu" shows us with a gritty directness and power, is more quotidian. For Shoji's title...
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
Man charged with murder allegedly made victim date other men for money
A car carrying suspect Ryotaro Masuda, who was indicted for allegedly beating his 25-year-old girlfriend to death, leaves the Shibuya Police Station in Tokyo on Thursday.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ex-yokozuna Kitanofuji dies at 82
Yokozuna Kitanofuji enters the ring during the May 1970 grand sumo tournament in Tokyo.
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.”
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
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.

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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