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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 29, 2010
'Raiou (The Lightning Tree)'
When Ryuichi Hiroki had a big hit last year with "Yomei 1-kagetsu no Hanayome (April Bride)," a drama about a young woman's struggle with terminal breast cancer, I was glad for him. In a directing career of two decades, he had never enjoyed this sort of commercial success and, unlike the hacks who serve...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 22, 2010
'Wakiyaku Monogatari (Cast Me if You Can)'
When I hear rants from foreigners about the badness of Japanese acting, I don't rise to the defense of the hammy emoting or smarmy mugging I've seen on the screen here, of which there's been plenty. But I do run through the long list in my head of the Japanese actors, from stars to supporting players,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 15, 2010
'Inshite Miru: 7-kakan no Desu Gemu (The Incite Mill -7 Day Death Game-)'
J-horror is over. The moment for the ghostly ladies with the long black hair has passed. But people still want to be scared at the movies — and among the Japanese films doing it most successfully now are the hybrids of the horror, mystery and thriller genres that treat murder as a game.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 8, 2010
'Redline'
I was into car chase movies for about two minutes in the 1970s — "Bullit," "The French Connection," "Duel" — but they quickly became cliches, then jokes. "Smokey and the Bandit," "Cannonball Run" and — need I say more?
CULTURE / Film
Oct 8, 2010
Movie program offers some Japanese gems
For foreign residents, monolingual or no, Tokyo International Film Festival offers a good chance to see new Japanese films with subtitles, especially in three of the main sections: Competition, Special Screenings and Japanese Eyes.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Oct 3, 2010
India's expanding film industry boasts more than just Bollywood
Everyone knows Bollywood — the film industry centered in Mumbai (formerly called Bombay, hence the "B" in Bollywood) whose singing and dancing entertainments are shown throughout the country — and now the world.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 1, 2010
'Nanase Futatabi: The Movie (Nanase Again)'
Some genres of Japanese movies are hard to "place" for Westerners, since they have no precise Hollywood equivalent. The ero guro (erotic and grotesque) genre, for example, is often lumped into the horror category by overseas festivals and DVD distributors, but the films are usually less about jack-in-the-box...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 24, 2010
'Jusannin no Shikaku (13 Assassins)'
Takashi Miike's rise is complete: This one-time director of cheapo shock pics — which he churned out like sausages and were beloved by foreign Asian Extreme fans — is now a proven hit-maker and recognized auteur, with his new samurai swashbuckler "Jusannin no Shikaku (13 Assassins)" screening in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 17, 2010
'Kimi ga Odoru, Natsu (The Summer You Danced)'
Melodramas have been a staple of Japanese film for decades, proving over and over the observation that Japanese audiences, more than anything else, love a good cry. I've gone to screenings where the women sitting around me take out their handkerchiefs even before the lights go down. The men start blubbing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 10, 2010
'Beck'
Yukihiko Tsutsumi's band drama "Beck" is being hyped as one of the big Japanese movies of the year for the usual reason: The manga on which it's based, by Harold Sakuishi, has sold 15 million copies. Distributor Shochiku justifiably expects monster box office numbers, no doubt thinking of "Nana," another...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 3, 2010
'Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro: Kaiki (Tales of Terror: The Bizarre)'
...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 27, 2010
'Tokyo-jima (Tokyo Island)'
It's a common fantasy — being the only guy on an island of beautiful women. But to be the only woman on an island of men, including the good, the bad and the ugly? Somewhat different, isn't it?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 20, 2010
Pearl-diving sirens return
The castaway on a deserted tropical isle has inspired everything from "Robinson Crusoe" to innumerable New Yorker cartoons — but it was no joke to Kazuko Higa, the young wife of an assistant plantation overseer living on the small Pacific island of Anatahan in the closing days of World War II.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 20, 2010
Japan's first film nude still radiant decades after getting skirty
Arranging an interview with Michiko Maeda took nearly a month — she has long been media-shy — but when she finally agreed to meet film writer Yoshiaki Suzuki and me at a Tokyo beer hall, she epitomized kimonoed grace and charm, while saying this would be her final interview.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 20, 2010
'Colorful'
One of the iron rules for Hollywood scriptwriters is that the audience must root for the hero. Character flaws and bad behavior are permitted, but, in the final analysis, the hero should not be a jerk.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 13, 2010
Radical director of porn and politics delivers yet again
Koji Wakamatsu is living proof that a lifelong rebel can thrive in Japan's go-along-to-get-along film industry. Today he is celebrated as not just another '60s survivor — he helped pioneer the pinku (pink, or soft porn) genre in that era, mixing in radical politics and experimental aesthetics with...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 13, 2010
'Caterpillar'
Once an enfant terrible, who as a young filmmaker challenged censors and outraged conservative critics with everything from surreal S&M sex to sympathetic portrayals of Palestinian radicals, Koji Wakamatsu has not mellowed so much as ripened.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 6, 2010
'Kinako — Minarai Keisatsuken no Monogatari (Kinako — The Story of an Apprentice Police Dog)'
Animal movies are a thriving genre of Japanese films that foreign critics, scholars and viewers by and large cordially detest. It's similar to the typical gaijin reaction to natto (fermented soy beans) — i.e., disgust at a humble, but beloved, made-in-Japan specialty.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 30, 2010
'Nihon no Ichiban Nagai Natsu (Japan's Longest Summer)'/'Ishii Teruo: Eiga Tamashi (Teruo Ishii: The Soul of Film)'
August is the season in Japan for a never-ending stream of films and TV programs about World War II. Quite naturally, from the Japanese perspective, most of this outpouring examines the war's closing days, particularly the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some outsiders (including this one)...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 23, 2010
'Chonmage Purin (Chonmage Pudding)'
Yoshiro Nakamura is a rare bird among Japanese directors today. Though he has worked at the top of the industry, where the TV networks and Toho rule, he has so far avoided making the usual Japanese commercial film based on a hit manga, game or TV drama.
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

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