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November 23, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
May 13, 2015
Sign of the times as yakuza classic gets kudos at Cannes
In the early 2000s, when I was writing a book about yakuza movies, veterans of the genre's 1960s and '70s heyday I met had a fierce pride in their work but no illusions about its low ranking in the film-world hierarchy. In particular, the Toei studio's films about sword-swinging or gun-toting gangsters...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 29, 2015
Is there life after death for Japan's aging women?
When Katsumi Sakaguchi quit working as a documentary filmmaker in the spring 2008 to look after his mother Suchie, he thought he was doing the right thing. Then 78, Suchie was suffering from what Sakaguchi describes as "mental confusion" following the death of her daughter from cancer two years earlier...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 29, 2015
Takeshi Kitano's gang of nursing-home yakuza
Takeshi Kitano has had some of his biggest critical and commercial successes with gangster films, beginning with his 1993 international breakthrough "Sonatine" and continuing through to his 2012 hit "Outrage Beyond" ("Beyond Outrage"), which screened in competition at the 2012 Venice Film Festival.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 22, 2015
Surviving the night of the long tentacular knives in 'Parasyte: Part 2'
When we left Shinichi (Shota Sometani) and his inseparable parasite companion Migi at the end of Takashi Yamazaki's 2014 sci-fi/horror hit "Kiseiju" ("Parasyte: Part 1"), the space-alien organisms who had found human hosts in the city of Higashi Fukuyama were not only slaughtering humans for food —...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 15, 2015
Adaptation of Banana Yoshimoto's 'Asleep' is heavy with depression and Eros
Sleep is the great restorer, one we frazzled moderns eternally need, desire and lack. But for Terako (Sakura Ando), the sleepy-eyed heroine of photographer and director Shingo Wakagi's "Shirakawa Yofune" ("Asleep"), the bedroom is a battleground of the spirit.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 15, 2015
Jidaigeki revival?
The jidaigeki (samurai period drama) genre, whose films and TV series featuring sword-swinging samurai once dominated popular culture here, has long since fallen on hard times. In contrast to its 1950s peak, when jidaigeki accounted for nearly half the films in theaters, the genre has become something...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 8, 2015
How do you cure an allergy to money?
When is a "multitalented" person too "multi"? Where is the line between extending your creative energies in new directions and spreading yourself thin?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 2, 2015
'April Fools' gets the wrong end of the practical-joke schtick
The Japanese film industry has themed many movies around that imported holiday, Christmas, or, more specifically, Christmas Eve, which has become Japan's date night of date nights. Even those outside the local film industry now celebrate special days that originated elsewhere, including Halloween, Valentine's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 25, 2015
When the burden of surviving an earthquake is too much for a child to bear
Survivor guilt is a common outcome of war, natural disasters or anything that produces victims and survivors linked by blood, friendship or other ties. Why did you die but not me? Why couldn't I save you? The questions gnaw, and outsiders have no real answers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 25, 2015
Kanojo wa Uso wo Aishisugiteru (The Liar and His Lover)
Director: Norihiro Koizumi Language: Japanese (subtitled in English)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 18, 2015
Is Asian cinema caught in a festival feeding frenzy?
On March 5, tickets went on sale for Joe Hisaishi's concert at a 1,200-seat theater in Udine, Italy — and they were sold out in less than a week. In Japan, where Hisaishi is well known as a composer for his soundtracks to films by Hayao Miyazaki, Takeshi Kitano and many others, this rush for tickets...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 18, 2015
Forget Me Not: Falling in love is hard when no one remembers you
'I will never forget you," lovers say to each other. The truth is that sooner or later, almost everyone is forgotten. In fact, many people you've met, from your kindergarten classmates to that sloshed guy at the bar last night, have forgotten you already. If you ran into them on the street today, they...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 18, 2015
Omoide no Marnie (When Marnie Was There)
Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi Language: Japanese (subtitled in English)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 11, 2015
Can idol group Momoiro Clover Z learn to act?
The typical Japanese movie about the travails and triumphs of a high school club follows an upward arc, as the audience cheers on the heroes to their foregone triumph over setbacks and defeats. The actualities of how they become more accomplished swing musicians, as in "Swing Girls," or choral singers,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 11, 2015
Rurouni Kenshin: Densetsu no Saigo-hen (Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends)
Director: Keishi Ohtomo Language: Japanese (subtitled in English)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 4, 2015
In the cinematic wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster
In January 2013 Eiga Geijutsu magazine released its annual "Best 10 and Worst 10" lists. The two worst films of 2012, as chosen by the magazine's panel of critics, were Sion Sono's "Himizu" and "Kibo no Kuni (Land of Hope)." The former is about a teenage boy (Shota Sometani) driven to violence by his...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 4, 2015
The End of the World and the Cat's Disappearance: A post-pandemic tale of a heroic webcam idol
At their best, films about the future — sci-fi, fantasy and anything in between — offer up mind-expanding speculations and deep-drilling allegories, if not necessarily accurate predictions. Hardly anything in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" came to pass by 2001, but its vision of something...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 4, 2015
Mujin Chitai (No Man's Zone)
Director: Toshi Fujiwara Language: Japanese (subtitled in English)
CULTURE / Film
Feb 26, 2015
'Kuchibiru ni Uta wo' plays with school-club subgenre, but winds up at the same destination
Japanese movies about school clubs gunning for regional or national glory in everything from synchronized swimming to shodō (calligraphy) now constitute a distinct, well-trodden sub-genre. Based on a novel by Eiichi Nakata, Takahiro Miki's "Kuchibiru ni Uta wo" ("Have a Song on Your Lips") gives this...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 25, 2015
Japan's Academy Prizes — the fix is in?
Comedian, actor and director Takeshi Kitano had some scathing things to say about the Japanese film industry at last year's Tokyo International Film Festival, where he was given a career achievement award. One target he singled out was the Japan Academy Prizes — the local equivalent of the Oscars —...
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.
U.S. aircraft carrier returns to Japan carrying navy’s ‘most capable fighter’
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Fred Kacher speaks to reporters shortly after the arrival of aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.
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.
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.

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