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November 23, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 20, 2016
Tai Kato: The too-often neglected samurai- and ganster-movie master
Tai Kato (1916-85) has long ranked high on critics' lists as a neglected director, and the neglect continues, especially overseas.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 13, 2016
'Ishibumi': Tragic history set in stone
An annual ritual on Japanese television on or around Aug. 6 is a number of special programs about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truth be told, after many years in this country I tune out more than I tune in. Just as the bombings were political acts, so are the many memorial programs...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 6, 2016
'Moriyamachu Driving School': Two teens behind the wheel of life
Learning to drive is a rite of passage that more Japanese men appear to be avoiding: The number of male drivers has been falling every year since 2009. The number of women drivers, by contrast, has been rising. Reasons for the drop include the decline of the car as a male status symbol. Back in the day,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 6, 2016
Skip City International D-Cinema Festival is not just for film buffs
Launched 13 years ago in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture to present movies in the then-emerging digital format, the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival has since become a leading domestic showcase of feature, short and animated films by up-and-coming filmmakers from Japan and around the world.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 29, 2016
'Desperate Sunflowers': Women on the verge of friendship
Movies about female friendship are no longer rare: In the 25 years since the seminal "Thelma and Louise," even the Japanese film industry has figured out that two or more women bonding on screen can be good for the box office. But what about feuding female cousins?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 22, 2016
Keeping it real: Naomi Kawase on filmmaking
Naomi Kawase has always been an outlier in the Japanese film world, if a very successful one. Born and raised in Nara Prefecture, the site of Japan's ancient capital, she started making documentaries while a student at the Osaka School of Photography in the late 1980s, taking as subjects her natural...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 22, 2016
'Kako: My Sullen Past': Mikiko, the prodigal bomb maker
Would anyone in Hollywood now green-light a film with a quirky middle-aged heroine whose passion is making and detonating bombs? Especially one with no apologies for her explosive past, human collateral included? I can imagine the tremors at the pitch meeting when someone says the dreaded word "terrorist."...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 15, 2016
'Creepy': It doesn't get much eerier than this
The title of "Creepy," the new shocker by horror maestro Kiyoshi Kurosawa, sounds like an in-jokey self-parody. It's like titling a new Adam Sandler comedy "Goofy" (or if you're not feeling charitable, "Crappy"). But "Creepy," which premiered at this year's Berlin Film Festival, is also the title of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 8, 2016
'The Kodai Family': A daydream believer and her mind-reading prince
Doesn't everybody want somebody who understands their true inner self? For some, it's a spouse, for others, a friend; for others still, it's Mom. Some, however — and not all under the age of 5 — have this meeting of minds and hearts with a figment of their imaginations.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 1, 2016
'Danchi': The extraordinary everywoman
"Danchi" doesn't translate easily into English. "Apartment complex" or "housing estate" are only rough equivalents for the thousands of public-housing units thrown up in the postwar boom years to cope with Tokyo's exploding population. Equipped with running water, flush toilets and other amenities, with...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 26, 2016
Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia casts Tokyo in a special role
Now in its 18th edition, the Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, which will unspool from June 2 to 26 at six venues in Tokyo and Yokohama, has grown into a world-class showcase for short-form cinema.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 25, 2016
'Himeanole': The hairline between good and evil
The moral universe of most commercial films is simple: The good guys prevail, the bad guys are punished — and we are seldom in doubt as to who is who. But what if the bad guys deserve sympathy, even the ones who commit horrific crimes? Is that, in a movie world that prefers black and white to gray,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 18, 2016
Koreeda discusses before and 'After the Storm'
I've interviewed the director Hirokazu Koreeda several times over the years since we first met at a preview screening of his otherworldly drama "After Life" ("Wonderful Life," 1999). Then and now his answers to even often-asked questions are always thoughtful and considered.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 18, 2016
'Wolf Girl and Black Prince': The dogged persistence of teen love
Girls go for bad, abusive guys, while relegating nice, decent ones to the dreaded "friend zone": A misogynistic lie or the cold, hard truth? Ryuichi Hiroki's "Wolf Girl and Black Prince" seems to say the latter, starting with its premise. A naive, socially inept high school girl agrees to become the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 11, 2016
'After the Storm': Koreeda's tempestuous family affairs
Hirokazu Koreeda has a reputation abroad as the one director of his generation carrying on the humanist tradition of Japanese cinema's 1950s and '60s Golden Age. This is not totally off the mark — he often returns to that favorite Golden Age theme, family dissolution, but his take on it is quite different...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 4, 2016
'Hero Mania': Japanese heroes are keeping it real
Why don't Japanese audiences turn up in big numbers for Hollywood superhero movies? The rare success in Japan of the Spider-Man series suggests one answer: Japanese like superheroes just fine, as long as they're flawed humans as well as heroic fighters for justice.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 27, 2016
'Terraformars': Miike's life on Mars has its bugs
Now that voyages to Mars seem likely in the next generation or so, films about the red planet are moving beyond the "John Carter" (2012) space-opera stage. But for every reality-based "The Martian," there is still a "Terraformars," Takashi Miike's latest extreme entertainment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 20, 2016
'I Am a Hero': Japanese zombies pick up the pace
Horror films here have traditionally featured vengeful female ghosts, but Japanese filmmakers do also take cues from Hollywood, where zombies have long flourished since George Romero's seminal "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) and "Dawn of the Dead" (1978). Even so, Japanese zombie films, such as Hiroshi...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 13, 2016
Okita keeps every hair in place
Millions of Japanese have come from the countryside to find their fortunes in Tokyo, with most arriving in the postwar boom when jobs were everywhere and the future looked bright. But many, like the punk rocker hero of Shuichi Okita's offbeat, warm-hearted family comedy "The Mohican Comes Home" ("Mohikan...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 6, 2016
'Lowlife Love': The shady love of the film industry
According to Eiren (Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan), 581 Japanese films were released domestically last year, many of which were low-budget productions shown in small numbers of theaters. Beneath these films "officially" recognized by Eiren is a substratum of straight-to-DVD fare. And...
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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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