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July 17, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 1, 2013
'Su-chan Mai-chan Sawako-san'
...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 1, 2013
'Ai no Mukidashi'
Director: Sion Sono
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 24, 2013
Sharing films with a master critic
Donald Richie was my friend and mentor for more than 20 years and my inspiration before that. When I was preparing to come to Japan for the first time in 1975, I read many books about the place, but Donald's masterpiece "The Inland Sea" was the one that entranced me. My first long trip after my arrival...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2013
'Yokomichi Yonosuke'
Plenty of Japanese directors make films about socially awkward or marginal guys: Given all the on-screen examples (as well as their many real-life inspirations), it seems that the onetime country of the samurai has become the land of the otaku and freeter (unemployed or underemployed), clasping to emotional...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 15, 2013
'Sado Tenpesuto'
Beginning with 2001's "Ichiban Utsukushi Natsu (Firefly Dreams)," a Yasujiro Ozu-esque drama about a friendship that develops between a rebellious teenage girl and an elderly former actress in the countryside, John Williams has been directing films in Japan with Japanese talent that do...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 15, 2013
'My film remixes "The Tempest" '
A Welshman who moved to Nagoya in 1988 and has been based in Japan ever since, John Williams is the rare foreigner who has worked in the Japanese film industry in not only the usual facilitator roles, as line producer and translator, but has also directed his own well-regarded films here. His first...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 8, 2013
'Kiiroi Zo'
Ryuichi Hiroki has become the go-to director for romantic dramas that quality-wise are a cut above the local formula weepers whose starred-crossed lovers are parted by a slow, beautiful death (though Hiroki's couples are hardly immune to life's vicissitudes). At the same time, his films in this genre...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2013
'R-18 Bungakusho Vol. 1: Jijojibaku no Watashi'
Sex is universal, but kinks can be local. Japanese S&M, at least the varieties I've seen in films over the years, is less about black leather and fishnet stockings, more about candle wax and artfully elaborate knots designed to display the flesh of the (inevitably female) subject in enticing ways....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 26, 2013
Looking back on a major turning point
Routinely acclaimed as a giant of world cinema in his lifetime, Akira Kurosawa has slipped in the global director league rankings since his death in 1998.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 25, 2013
'Minasan, Sayonara (See You Tomorrow, Everyone)'
Those directors who return to the same theme over and over commonly use the same actor to embody it. Akira Kurosawa cast Toshiro Mifune as the intense hero in film after film about masculine, if not always traditionally macho, heroism. Juzo Itami starred wife Nobuko Miyamoto as the tough cookie taking...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 17, 2013
'Furasshubakku Memorizu 3D (Flashback Memories 3D)'
Music documentaries nearly all feature nonmusical moments, such as Bob Dylan sardonically jousting with journalists in 'Dont Look Back.' 'Furasshubakku Memorizu 3D (Flashback Memories 3D),' a documentary of didgeridoo player Goma offers no such moments.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 17, 2013
Matsue: 'Goma's positivity left me revitalized'
Since his 1999 debut "Anyon Kimuchi (Annyong Kimchi)," a documentary about his zainichi (ethnic Korean) family, Tetsuaki Matsue has been interested in those on the margins of Japanese society — though he is hardly the director-as-crusader.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 17, 2013
Nagisa Oshima: a leading force in film
Film director Nagisa Oshima, who died in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, of pneumonia on Tuesday at age 80, was a leader of Japan's postwar New Wave movement.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2013
'Tokyo Kazoku (Tokyo Family)'
A director for the Shochiku studio since 1961, Yoji Yamada is best known for the Tora-san series about a wandering peddler, played by Kiyoshi Atsumi, who is forever falling in love but never gets the girl. In speaking about the 48 installments of this popular series, which started in 1969 and ended...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 6, 2013
Complex tales of censorship in 20th-century Japan
THE ART OF CENSORSHIP IN POSTWAR JAPAN, by Kirsten Cather. University of Hawaii Press, 2012, 342 pp., $45.00 (hardcover) REDACTED: The Archives of Censorship in Transwar Japan, by Jonathan E. Abel. University of California Press, 2012, 376 pp., $44.95 (hardcover) Censorship in Japan has long...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / BEST OF 2012
Dec 28, 2012
Japan's female directors make a strong showing
Female Japanese directors were once like those rare species periodically discovered in Asian jungles and immediately labeled endangered. This year, however, in their highly individual ways, they made some of Japan's strongest, most ambitious films. By now the only thing endangered is local industry prejudice...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2012
'Ooku: Eien- Emonnosuke ・ Tsunayoshi-hen (The Castle of Crossed Destinies)'
Based on Fumi Yoshinaga's best-selling manga about a feudal-era Japan ruled by a fictional matriarchy, 2010's "Ooku (The Lady Shogun and Her Men)" was a typical Japanese costume film with gorgeous kimonos and a story of drama in high places.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 14, 2012
'Gummo Ebian! (G'mor Evian!)'
When teenagers see their parents goofing around or generally not acting their ancient age, they often react with embarrassment, scorn or the fervent wish that these so-called adults would just grow up. Then inevitably, not long later, those sophisticated 15-year-olds are goofing around themselves —...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 7, 2012
'MIS: Human Secret Weapon' / 'Santa Kurosu wo Tsukamaete (Chasing Santa Claus)'
Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, thousands of Japanese-Americans, including those born and raised in the United States, were shipped to internment camps, while others joined the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which fought with great bravery in the European theater.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 2, 2012
The ever-evolving digital movie world
JAPANESE CINEMA IN THE DIGITAL AGE, by Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano. University of Hawaii Press, 2012, 178 pp., $47 (hardcover) The world film industry, including Japan's, is now completing a changeover from traditional film stock to digital substitutes.
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
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