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July 17, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 26, 2013
'Jigoku de Naze Warui (Why Don't You Play in Hell?)'
Even great directors can make turkeys, sometimes without much obvious change in their style or obsessions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 26, 2013
'Kokuriko-zaka Kara (From Up on Poppy Hill)'
Director: Goro Miyazaki
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 19, 2013
'Soshite Chichi ni Naru (Like Father, Like Son)'
The English and Japanese titles of Hirokazu Koreeda's dual-family drama "Soshite Chichi ni Naru (Like Father, Like Son)" are quite different in meaning, but both express something important about this extraordinary film, winner of the Jury Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 19, 2013
'Casshern'
Director: Kazuaki Kiriya
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013
Aoyama looks to the 1980s without nostalgia
Shinji Aoyama is the director as cinephile. That is, while winning awards for his own films, including two prizes at Cannes for his 2000 drama "Eureka," he has long been a serious student of films by others, beginning with his days at Rikkyo University as a disciple of eminent film scholar Shigehiko...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013
'Tomogui (Backwater)'
In 1971 the Nikkatsu studio, desperate to stave off bankruptcy, switched production to the then-burgeoning genre of softcore pornography. Made mostly by young directors promoted after their elders fled, the films were hardly intended as high art. Instead their main selling point was simulated sex, often...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013
'Minnasan, Sayonara! (See You Tomorrow, Everyone)'
Director: Yoshihiro Nakamura
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013
'The Wolverine' draws from other Hollywood hits set in Japan
Director James Mangold has claimed Japanese film influences on his Marvel comic adaptation "The Wolverine," including Akira Kurosawa's 1957 film "Kumonosu-jo (The Throne of Blood)." But the film, in which Hugh Jackman's immortal Wolverine character comes to Japan, falls in love with a local beauty and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013
Kobayashi film explores Japan's suicide problem
A folk-singer-turned-filmmaker who went to France in 1981 to apprentice under his idol François Truffaut, Masahiro Kobayashi may have failed in his quest (he couldn't work up the courage to press Truffaut's doorbell), but after returning to Japan became a prolific scriptwriter for pinku (softcore...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013
'Nihon no Higeki (Japan's Tragedy)'
What is a good death? For certain Japanese Buddhist priests it was sokushinbutsu — self-mummification. As practiced by members of the Shingon sect, it was a decade-long process that culminated with the priest's descent into a stone tomb to meditate in darkness, without food or water, until the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013
'Kibo no Kuni (The Land of Hope)'
Director: Sion Sono
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 29, 2013
'Soul Flower Train'
Dads, in Japan and elsewhere, never quite believe that their daughters are grown up and gone, do they? On a corner of their desk or in a corner of their mind is a picture of their princess at the school play or the piano recital or just making a goofy 8-year-old face. Yes, there are sternly realistic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 29, 2013
'Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman'
Director: Various
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 22, 2013
'Natsu no Owari (The End of Summer)'
First published in 1963, Jakucho Setouchi's "Natsu no Owari (The End of Summer)" was the "Fifty Shades of Grey" of its day: a best-selling novel written by a woman that viewed the unconventional love life of its 38-year-old heroine with the sort of matter-of-factness then considered daring. But the story,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 22, 2013
'Kumo no Hitomi (Eyes of the Spider), Hebi no Michi (Serpent's Path)'
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
CULTURE / Books
Aug 17, 2013
Revisiting the works of director Takashi Miike
Takashi Miike is one of the few Japanese filmmakers now working, Takeshi Kitano and Hayao Miyazaki being two others, who enjoy a measure of recognition outside Japan's insular film world. Though hardly a household name in Kansas, Miike has long been a favorite with the international Asian Extreme Cinema...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013
Monster-film maker tackles other big menace
Norman England is the world's leading non-Japanese expert on all things Godzilla, if hours logged on the set are any measure. From 1999 to 2004, he spent, by his own estimate, 150 days at Toho Studios watching the king of kaiju (monsters) come to life in film after film, culminating with Ryuhei Kitamura's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013
When young creators answer the big city's siren call
Veteran scriptwriter and director Toshiyuki Morioka had more than a professional interest in making his new film "Jokyo Monogatari." Based on an autobiographical manga by Rieko Saibara, its story of an aspiring artist coming to Tokyo to learn her trade and make her fortune was his as well.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013
'Jokyo Monogatari'
So many Japanese have relocated to Tokyo over the years to make their fortunes — or simply to escape rural poverty — that there is a word to describe the act: jōkyō (which the dictionary defines as "proceeding to the capital [Tokyo]"). Something similar in English would be "New...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013
Various Toho war films
Director: Various
Who needs AI when you have Hatsune Miku?
Over the first six months of 2024, a handful of songs using Vocaloid singer Hatsune Miku’s voice have enjoyed widespread attention, underlining a global interest in the character and the technology she represents.
Yen’s woes seem too big for even a BOJ hike this month to solve
The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo
China’s economic growth comes in worse than expected
Pedestrians in the Wangfujing shopping area in Beijing on July 11, 2024. China's economic growth in the second quarter was lower than forecast, adding pressure on Chinese leaders to lift confidence at the Chinese Communist Party's third plenum this week.
Kansai airports to increase takeoff and landing slots ahead of Osaka Expo
Kansai International Airport in Izumisano, Osaka Prefecture. The upper limit on the number of takeoff and landing slots at the airport as well as Kobe Airport in Hyogo Prefecture will be raised in spring next year ahead of the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka.
Shooter came within inches of killing Trump, but left few clues as to why
An aerial view shows the stage where Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump had been standing during an assassination attempt the day before, and the roof of a nearby building where a gunman was shot dead by law enforcement, in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Sunday.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
After Trump shooting, U.S. presidential race might take a violent turn
United States Secret Service Counter Snipers stand guard on a rooftop during a campaign rally for U.S. President Donald Trump in Avoca, Pennsylvania, in 2020.
No AC this summer? No problem (for me).
Think air conditioning is a requirement for a Tokyo summer? Think again.
She’s paying ¥1 million to help behind the scenes at the Paris Olympics
Mai Tarumi, who previously volunteered at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, has a travel budget of ¥1 million for her trip to volunteer at the Paris Games.

Podcast

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Longform

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
By Tomoko Otake

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Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals
Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals

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