author

 
Menu
Search
 
July 17, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

Meta

Mark Schilling
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Feb 14, 2010
An 'eroduction' to Japan's saucy cinema
The Nikkatsu studio is the Japanese film industry's oldest — it will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2012. In the 1950s and early 1960s it was also a box-office leader, turning out hit after hit with Japan's biggest postwar star, Yujiro Ishihara. By the 1970s, however, Nikkatsu and the rest...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 12, 2010
'Shokudo Katatsumuri'
Movies about women in crisis who find their mojo through the restaurant/food business are a thriving subgenre in Japanese films, from Naoko Ogigami's Japanese-soul-food-in-Helsinki hit "Kamome Shokudo" ("Seagull Restaurant," 2006) to Mitsuhiro Mihara's "Shiawase no Kaori" ("Flavor of Happiness," 2008)...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 5, 2010
'Kazura'/'Boys on the Run'
The odds of two brilliant Japanese comedies opening the same day are high but not impossible, somewhat like the odds of the same director (James Cameron) making two all-time worldwide box-office hits ("Titanic" and that other film about blue aliens).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 29, 2010
'Golden Slumber'/'Ototo'
Yoshihiro Nakamura has made a mix of indie and commercial films, from the multilayered, end-of-the-world thriller "Fish Story" (2008) to the hospital mystery "General Rouge no Gaisen" ("The Triumphant General Rouge," 2009). Whatever the subject, he always injects his personal obsessions, from the shape-shifting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 15, 2010
'Kondo wa Aisaika'
Japanese film marriages are as diverse as the real things, ranging from the uncommunicative couple of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Tokyo Sonata" (2008) to the doting pair of the "Tsuri Baka Nisshi" ("Dairy of a Fishing Fool") series (1988-2009), though the easy-going wife of the fishing-mad salaryman hero has...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 8, 2010
A feast for film buffs
The Japanese film industry, at least the top end where Toho and its media partners dwell, is looking forward to a prosperous 2010, with a lineup of crowd-pleasers that should thump the Hollywood competition.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 8, 2010
' Bandage'
Shunji Iwai was once Japan's hottest young director following the smash success of "Love Letter," a 1995 film about a woman who writes a letter to her dead lover — and gets a reply.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 25, 2009
' Higanjima'
Hollywood likes its action movies fast and furious, their plot lines reducible to a phrase.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 18, 2009
'Snow Prince'
An anonymous poster on 2Channel — Japan's popular message-board site — once listed the elements that make for a successful Japanese melodrama as 1. Children 2. Animals 3. Poverty 4. Sickness, and 5. Death.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 18, 2009
Back to basic instincts
Mamoru Oshii is best known here and abroad as an anime auteur whose works, from the seminal dystopian SF "Kokaku Kidotai" ("Ghost in the Shell," 1995) to the air-action epic "Sky Crawlers" (2008), have often viewed the future of humanity through a glass darkly.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 11, 2009
A decade when Japan's cinema stood up to Hollywood menace
When I started reviewing Japanese films for The Japan Times in 1989, many of the people making and distributing them were convinced that the Hollywood juggernaut was slowly crushing them. How could they hope to compete against superior Hollywood technology and vastly larger Hollywood budgets?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 11, 2009
And the best Japanese films of 2009 were . . .
1. "Fish Story":
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 4, 2009
'Yomigaeri no Chi'
Drugs can finish you off in Japanese show business. One bust for possession spells the end to offers of every kind, from ad deals to drama-series roles to Christmas tree lightings. Theaters pull your latest film, your agency fires you and nobody wants to know you but your dog. In Hollywood, celebrity...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 27, 2009
'Black Gaisha ni Tsutometerundaga mo Ore wa Genkai Kamo Shirenai'
Films about Japanese organization men, from bureaucrats to salarymen, have long broadly divided into two categories — the serious ones, that portray work life as a sort of holy war, fought by loyal, self-sacrificing blue-suited soldiers, and the comic, whose characters range from pompous idiots...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 20, 2009
'Tsumuji Kaze Shokudo no Yoru'
Take a quaint European-looking restaurant in a quiet Hokkaido town in the dead of winter. Add quirky regulars who are treated to nightly disquisitions, philosophical and otherwise, by the avuncular owner of a local hat shop. Toss in scrumptious- looking "set menus" of steaks, croquettes and other Western-...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 13, 2009
'Zero no Shoten'
Mystery writer Seicho Matsumoto (1909-1992) was long to the Japanese entertainment industry what Stephen King has been to Hollywood — a one-man fiction factory who supplied material for dozens of films and TV dramas.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 6, 2009
'Sideways'
Hollywood has long been an enthusiastic remaker of foreign films, including ones from Japan. Kurosawa was an early favorite since his samurai could easily be repurposed as cowboys, beginning with "The Magnificent Seven," the 1960 remake of "The Seven Samurai," (1954).
JAPAN / Media
Nov 1, 2009
It's big or bust in eyes of Japanese cinema
Now in its sixth year, the Japanese Eyes section of the Tokyo International Film Festival, has evolved from its beginnings as a showcase for the middle range of Japanese films — that is, ones not readily classifiable as hardcore indie or commercial mainstream, though made, in some cases, by well-known...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 30, 2009
'Watashi Dasuwa'
"A fool and his money are soon parted" and all its many variations is a common theme in films, from the heist-of-a-lifetime that ruins so many lives in "Goodfellas" to Gary Cooper handing out his inherited fortune to total strangers in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" and then coming to regret it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 23, 2009
'Shizumanu Taiyo'
"I am big. It's the pictures that got small," Gloria Swanson declaimed in "Sunset Boulevard." In the Japan film industry, though, the pictures are getting bigger — gargantuan, in fact. Examples include the "Death Note" duology, the "20-seiki Shonen" ("20th Century Boys") trilogy, and "Ai no Mukidashi"...
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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER