Mark Schilling - The Japan Times

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Mark Schilling

CULTURE / Film

Jan 11, 2017

'A Drop from Tomato': Planting the seeds of reconciliation

For independent filmmakers from elsewhere in Asia with high censorship or distribution hurdles, Japan must look like paradise. Last year, most of the 581 local films released here were low-budget indie titles. Hardly any of their makers got rich, but at least their films saw the theatrical light of day....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 4, 2017

'Our Meal for Tomorrow': Changing roles in romantic drama

Gender-bending comedy certainly exists in Japanese films, though it may not be mainstream. In Yosuke Fujita's "Fuku-chan of FukuFuku Flats" ("Fukufukuso no Fukuchan," 2014), popular female TV comedian Miyuki Oshima starred as a male house painter who becomes allergic to the opposite sex after being jilted...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Jan 4, 2017

'Tampopo' has blown back to our screens

Released in 1985, Juzo Itami's "Tampopo" was famously a flop in Japan, but a hit abroad, especially in the United States, where it became the second-highest-earning Japanese film ever. This "noodle Western" about a rough-hewn truck driver (Tsutomu Yamazaki) who helps a spunky widow (Nobuko Miyamoto)...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 28, 2016

'14 That Night': Not quite abreast of teenage angst

Japanese films about high schoolers are many; junior high schoolers, few. One reason is that producers can cast a film about 17 year olds with 27-year-old actors who have massive fan followings. The result: bigger box office than if they had used newcomers barely into adolescence.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 21, 2016

A new wave of Japanese filmmakers matches the old

Nearly two decades after the Japanese New Wave of the 1990s, the directors who led it, including Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Hirokazu Koreeda and Naomi Kawase, are still the local industry's most prominent faces abroad. But this year a new generation of filmmakers has finally started to make itself heard, with...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 14, 2016

Is Southeast Asia now Japan's competition?

Japan is an Asian entertainment powerhouse, is it not? This October's Japan Contents Showcase, which was held in Tokyo's Odaiba and Shibuya areas, included markets for film and TV (TIFFCOM), animation (TIAF) and music (TIMM), with 356 Japanese companies selling to 1,539 registered buyers, most from Asia....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 14, 2016

'The Mole Song: Hong Kong Capriccio': Digging deep into the yakuza

Since his start as a director in 1991, Takashi Miike has accumulated nearly 100 credits, including his output for television broadcast and straight-to-video release. Far from being the faceless journeyman this number suggests, Miike is a genre auteur who has put his individual stamp on his films, with...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 7, 2016

'The Old Capital': Stuck on the inside of tradition

Kyoto would seem to be the most international city in Japan, if the number of foreign tourists were the only criterion. More than a million visit the city annually, giving the 1.5 million locals, especially ones living and working in and near the major tourist sites, plenty of exposure to outlanders....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 30, 2016

'Japanese Girls Never Die': They want to have more than just fun

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he wants to build a society in which "all women can shine." But as Daigo Matsui graphically shows in his new film "Japanese Girls Never Die," women in Japan are still living in a male-dominated society that, in everything from unequal pay to blatant sexual harassment,...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 23, 2016

'The Rondo of the Squall': More damp squib than thrilling storm

The film's formulas cover lead actor Hiroshi Abe's best efforts in a white blanket of mediocrity.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 16, 2016

Mifune: The making of Japan's 'Last Samurai'

Toshiro Mifune was the first Japanese — or, for that matter, Asian — actor to become an international action star.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 16, 2016

'In This Corner of the World': Katabuchi's war film has a human heart

Going into "In This Corner of the World" ("Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni"), Sunao Katabuchi's animation about a girl's coming of age in prewar Hiroshima and wartime Kure, I was vaguely expecting an anti-war film like Isao Takahata's classic "Grave of the Fireflies" ("Hotaru no Haka," 1988), with its heart-rending...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 9, 2016

Japanese films dive deep at TIFF, but surface without major awards

The Japanese films at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival were a varied lot, from the multiplex fare in the Special Screenings and Japan Now sections to the indies in the Japanese Cinema Splash, Competition and Asian Future sections.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 9, 2016

'At the Terrace' offers witty, coarse fun

"I know that many film fans have an allergy to films based on plays," writes Kenji Yamauchi on the website for his new film, "At the Terrace" ("At the Terrace: Terasu Nite"). "The never-changing setting and the long conversations bore them."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Nov 9, 2016

Tokyo Filmex sharpens its focus

Is Tokyo Filmex losing its raison d'etre? Opening less than a month after the Tokyo International Film Festival ends, Tokyo Filmex was once the hard-core indie antithesis of the larger, more mainstream TIFF, but the latter is now more welcoming to the kind of young, up-and-coming Japanese and Asian directors...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 2, 2016

'Memories': Remembering the Battle of Peleliu

Japanese films about the war, both fiction and nonfiction, rarely focus on the fighting between Japanese and American forces in the Pacific, though Clint Eastwood's 2006 hit "Letters from Iwo Jima" proved the subject can make for critically acclaimed and commercially successful drama.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Nov 2, 2016

Tokyo Station Gallery celebrates Ken Takakura's traditional virtues

Ken Takakura (1931-2014) was a major film star for nearly five decades. He also became a national icon for embodying traditional virtues, especially in his dozens of gang films for the Toei studio in the 1960s and '70s.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 26, 2016

'My Uncle': Time to wake up and smell the coffee

Some movies are like a relaxing soak in a bubble bath with your favorite rubber duck. Your soul may not soar, but when you finally emerge you feel lighter on your feet and at peace with the world. What's wrong with that? That was my feeling as I exited "My Uncle," Nobuhiro Yamashita's new comedy starring...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 20, 2016

Tokyo International Film Festival welcomes audiences to the animated world of Mamoru Hosoda

The Tokyo International Film Festival, whose 29th edition unspools from Oct. 25 to Nov. 3, offers something for everyone — from golden oldies in the Japanese Classics section to films for kids in the new Youth section. However, as Japan's biggest film festival, as well as one of the most important...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 19, 2016

Japan's eclectic collection of choice

The Tokyo International Film Festival offers a great once-in-a-year opportunity to see new and classic Japanese films with English subtitles. The sheer quantity on offer — more than 50 titles in the main sections alone — can be overwhelming, though. Here are samples from my own must-see list.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.

The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan

By Johan Brooks

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