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November 22, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 19, 2018
'The Hungry Lion': A nuanced account of the social media nightmare we all fear
Teenagers take chances that, to the adults in their lives, are sheer idiocy (as I know first-hand from both sides of the teenager-adult divide). These days anything they do or say can also end up on social media, which can instantly turn an adolescent goof into a mass roasting by thousands of strangers....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2018
Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Cannes submission tackles the difficulties of relationships
It has been more than two decades since Takeshi Kitano, Naomi Kawase, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Hirokazu Kore-eda began collecting major festival invitations and prizes as the leaders of Japanese cinema's 1990s new wave. Since then younger directors have struggled to crack this "4K" establishment to gain...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2018
'Asako I & II': Things are vague in this girl-meets-boy-meets-boy's doppleganger tale
"There will never be another you" goes the old song. Then again, some people believe in doppelgangers, doubles to living humans who are ghostly in form and malign in intent.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 29, 2018
'The Miracle of Crybaby Shottan': It's never too late to make your move
Chess pops up in a surprising number of feature films. Just look at all the documentaries and dramas about the outrageously gifted Bobby Fischer. Shogi, or Japanese chess, is a different and smaller story, though "Satoshi: A Move for Tomorrow," a 2016 film about prodigy Satoshi Murayama, garnered awards...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 22, 2018
'Sunny': The gang reunites for some 1990s nostalgia
Compared to today's Tokyo, where teenagers quietly curate their Instagram feeds in Starbucks and tourists happily snap selfies from the middle of Shibuya Crossing, the 1990s were a wilder, freer time.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2018
'Killing for the Prosecution': A complex crime drama stuffed with exposition
Once a maker of Hollywood-style sci-fi ("Gunhed," 1989) and noir ("Painted Desert," 1993), Masato Harada has become a director of films about fact-based, character-testing group missions, be it police routing radicals from a Karuizawa villa ("The Choice of Hercules," 2002) or samurai fighting the biggest...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 8, 2018
'The Exorcist Nurse': Horror hits the hospital for some summer chills
Summer was once the peak season for horror in Japan, part of the local custom of beating the heat with chills from scary stories.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2018
'Sensei Kunshu': Looking for love in all the wrong places
Student crushes on teachers are a pop culture staple (ask any Van Halen fan). In real life, they're a minefield, with trip wires becoming ever more sensitive.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2018
'Bleach': Easy entry into an action-packed manga world
Marvel and DC may rule the North American multiplex, but that doesn't mean their fans have read the source comics. In Japan the opposite is true: The manga comes first and foremost in a media chain that eventually leads to anime, games and, at the end, live-action films.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 18, 2018
'Boy Soldiers: The Secret War in Okinawa': Gripping stories told by Okinawans provide a firsthand account of war
By documenting the tales of those who lived through the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, filmmakers Chie Mikami and Hanayo Oya question the island's current role as a military stronghold.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 18, 2018
'Still Life of Memories': An erotic drama that perpetuates the male gaze
Hitoshi Yazaki goes slightly overboard with visual innuendo in an otherwise artistic film.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 10, 2018
'The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine': A sumo subplot stands out in a crowded film
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. I'm not sure if Takahisa Zeze knows this phrase but it applies to the heroes of his new film, "The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine," an overly long, high-energy passion project that languished in development hell for nearly two decades.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2018
John Williams presents a made-in-Japan take on one of Kafka's classics
Written at the start of World War I and published in 1925 after its author's untimely death, Franz Kafka's "The Trial" is one of those novels everyone knows by reputation (or, in my case, from a fevered reading in high school).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2018
'You, Your, Yours': Goofball gags that'll go over well with goofball guys
Love can drive you nuts. One recent illustration of how can be seen in the American TV show "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," about a successful New York lawyer who runs into her teen crush one day, and soon after quits her job and moves to California to be near him. That is, she becomes his stalker, but would...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 28, 2018
'Japan's grandmother' Kirin Kiki has defied conventions throughout her long film career
Now 75, Kirin Kiki is everyone’s favorite Japanese grandmother, a role she has been playing for years now on big screens and small. But she has also never been anyone’s stereotype of quietly suffering, nobly self-sacrificing Japanese womanhood.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 27, 2018
'The Name': Ren Komai's performance raises a multilayered drama
What's in a name? On one level, it's how you identify yourself to yourself (as in dorky name, dorky self-image). On another, it's your social calling card, your link to family, going back generations (or not, if an ancestor decided to exchange one name for another).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 20, 2018
Bill Hersey, man about Tokyo, 1930-2018: some tributes
Writer's kindness was legend, and his photos and columns told the story of a Tokyo social scene's rebirth after war and Occupation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 20, 2018
'One Cut of the Dead': A zombie flick that brings indie filmmaking back to life
Both budgets and box-office prospects for Japanese indie films have been declining for years. As the former approaches the zero mark, so do recognizable actors and other standard indicators of quality. Audiences, smelling amateurism, stay away.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 13, 2018
'Shoplifters': Kore-eda's Palme d'Or winner is an eloquent look at the human condition
When a Japanese director wins the Palme d'Or — the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival, the film world's equivalent of soccer's World Cup — the response of the local media is to celebrate: Our side won.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 12, 2018
Filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda visits the stadium that's home to all of America
'The Big House' captures more than just football in a documentary about the University of Michigan's main stadium.
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.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
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.

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

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