author

 
Menu
Search
 
November 22, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

Meta

Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 2, 2010
'Lost Crime Senko (Lost Crime — Flash)'
"Director's jail" is Hollywood-ese for the limbo in which film directors find themselves after a flop or two. Movie reviewers have their own versions of this, though they tend to be more tolerant of their favorite directors than are Hollywood producers, whose own necks are on the line when a film tanks...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 25, 2010
It is safe to bank on this hard-boiled man
Eiji Okuda doesn't fit into any of the usual boxes for actors in Japan — or anywhere else for that matter. He's had his share of leading roles over a three-decade career, often as a world-weary cop or gangster, but he's not what the local industry considers a star.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 25, 2010
'Flowers'
Directors steal from each other constantly — sometimes out of love, sometimes envy, sometimes a tangle of motives. The results range from Brian De Palma's famed "Odessa Steps" sequence in "The Untouchables," which thrillingly referenced the Sergei Eisenstein silent classic "The Battleship Potemkin,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 18, 2010
'Outrage'
Takeshi Kitano went to the Cannes Film Festival this year hoping to snag the big prize that had so far eluded him: the Palme d'Or. He left with little more than a stack of negative reviews from the international media for his competition entry, "Outrage." One panel of critics, for the trade magazine...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 11, 2010
'Kokuhaku'
Japanese films featuring school ijime (bullying) are as common as cherry trees in Ueno Park, and for good reason. When I was teaching at a boys' high school in Kodaira, western Tokyo, I would sometimes see signs of ijime, such as the returnee kid whose natively fluent English inspired titters from his...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 4, 2010
'Koko no Mesu'
Hollywood once used permanent sets for the dozens of Westerns it cranked out annually — the frontier town, ranch house and corral all in one convenient location, built to last. I sometimes imagine something similar for Japan's endless procession of hospital dramas. They all seem to use one generic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 28, 2010
'Railways'
The Japanese have a love affair with trains, especially the ones that trundle through the more picturesque parts of the country. One sure way to draw tourists to your rural prefecture is an ancient steam locomotive that chugs through a pretty middle-of-nowhere. For many visitors, it's not the destination,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 21, 2010
Globally minded director goes native
It's sad but true that Japanese directors with big reputations abroad are often odd men (or women) out back home.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 21, 2010
'Haru tono tabi (Travels with Haru)'
Masahiro Kobayashi is a unique figure in the Japanese film business. His knotty, idiosyncratic films, starting with the 1996 film "Closing Time," have never made much at the box office in Japan, though they have become favorites of foreign festival programmers. Four have screened at Cannes, including...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 14, 2010
'Zatoichi: The Last'
The "Zatoichi" series has long been an entry point for non-Japanese into Japanese films. Guys from Bonn to Buenos Aires who nod off after 10 minutes of Yasujiro Ozu's "Tokyo Monogatari" ("Tokyo Story") devour the 25 episodes of the original series of films (1962-1973), as well as the 1989 revival directed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 7, 2010
'Shodo Girls — Watashitachi no Koshien (Calligraphy Girls — Our Koshien)'
Some actors can transcend whatever crappy movie they happen to be in. Christopher Walken, for example, was notorious for appearing in straight-to-video sludge but also for making his scenes watchable in that weird, cool Walken way. He created a world oblivious to the depressing reality around him.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 30, 2010
'Zebraman 2: Zebra City no Gyakushu'
Who wouldn't want to be a superhero? The hero of Takashi Miike's 2004 action comedy "Zebraman" certainly would. Ichikawa (Sho Aikawa) is a nerdy teacher whose life is one big zero — until he dresses up like a 1970s superhero and takes to the streets of Yokohama at night, looking for citizens in distress....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 23, 2010
'Bushido Sixteen'
Women warriors have been a feature of Japanese films for decades, from Meiko Kaji's revenge-bent heroine in "Shurayuki Hime" (Lady Snowblood, 1973) — a major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" — to Haruka Ayase's sword-wielding shamisen player in "Ichi" (2008).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 16, 2010
'Darling wa Gaikokujin (My Darling is a Foreigner)'
Plenty of Japanese films feature foreigners, from extras in club scenes to main characters, such as Iain Glen's title hero in Masahiro Shinoda's WWII thriller "Spy Sorge" or Bae Doona's Korean exchange student in Nobuhiro Yamashita's high school comedy "Linda, Linda, Linda."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 9, 2010
'Yukai Rhapsody (The Accidental Kidnapper)'
Hollywood constantly remakes and reworks its old product — "Avatar" references everything from "Dances with Wolves" to the Tarzan movies — but sometimes it falls out of love with stories, even ones once widely popular.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 2, 2010
There's always a missing piece
The daughter of actor/director Eiji Okuda and sister of actress Sakura Ando, 28-year-old Momoko Ando has a deeply international background, including a nine-year stay in Britain, as well as thorough fluency in English. In person she was also articulate, straightforward, and gracious enough to give The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 2, 2010
'Kakera (A Piece Of Our Life)'
Sexual orientation is often defined in black-and-white terms: You're either straight or gay — or kidding yourself. Author Gore Vidal has famously objected to this binary classification, claiming that there's no such thing as homosexuality, only homosexual acts.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 19, 2010
'Hana no Ato (After the Flowers)'/'Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora'
Women have been wielding swords in Japanese period actioners for decades now, from the days when Junko Fuji and Meiko Kaji were slicing up bad guys, Fuji with stoic grace, Kaji with icy rage.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 12, 2010
Yazaki opens up about 'Lies'
A leader of Japanese cinema's 1990s New Wave, Hitoshi Yazaki dropped off the radar for more than a decade, returning in 2006 with "Strawberry Shortcakes," a widely praised drama about four lonely women in search of, not just a partner, but reasons for living. In his new film, "Sweet Little Lies," the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 12, 2010
'Sweet Little Lies'
Marriages are strange creatures. They can die suddenly, when from the outside everything seems fine, or they can linger on for years when it's obvious to everyone, including the two principals, that it's all over.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.

Podcast

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

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono
The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER