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November 23, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 6, 2016
'Miss Doc' shows the struggles of a lone female doctor in rural Japan
Change comes slowly to the Japanese film industry. The hagiographic biopic about a doctor, scientist or similarly distinguished personage — rarely seen in Hollywood since the days of Jack L. Warner and Louis B. Mayer — is still alive and well here.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 30, 2015
'Their Distance' explores the pain of being young and in love
'Honesty," Billy Joel famously lamented in song, "is hardly ever heard." The characters of Rikiya Imaizumi's ensemble drama "Their Distance" ("Shiranai, Futari") seem to have been listening: They are honest to a fault with each other about their feelings, even ones that hurt their listener.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 23, 2015
Top 10 films of 2015: War, slackers and a love hotel
It's hard to be an optimist about the present state of Japanese cinema. One reason is the decline of the mid-budget film, previously the refuge of much quality work, with many talented directors going either fully commercial or extremely indie. Micro-budget films are not inferior per se but their subject...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 16, 2015
Kiki Sugino: 'I'm always looking for myself'
Kiki Sugino has a one-of-a-kind resume in the domestic movie business. Many are the young "multi-talents" who act, sing and model, but most are recruited, molded and marketed by an agency. From the start, this 31-year-old actor, director and producer took a more independent route toward multi-dom.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 16, 2015
Family comedy 'Her Father, My Lover' is dark and absurd
"Love is strange," goes the song. But aren't lovers stranger? Maybe not you, but what about your middle-aged pal, besotted with a girl young enough to be his daughter? What could he be thinking? And "strange" is no longer the descriptor many would use. How about the various synonyms for "disgusting"?...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 9, 2015
Domestic film industry focuses inwards at its own peril
The Japanese film industry released 615 films last year, according to the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan. That figure may include glorified student productions and dressed-up pornography, but is still substantial by any measure. Relatively few of those films, however, are sold abroad....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 9, 2015
Ryusuke Hamaguchi's study of human love, loss and trust
One Asian film reviewer of my acquaintance writes “(J-film title) could be cut by (number of minutes)” so often that he's probably made it into a keyboard shortcut.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Dec 9, 2015
Filmmakers explore Japan's infamous doomsday cult, Aum Shinrikyo, with mixed results
Today the saga of Aum Shinrikyo — a doomsday cult that killed 13 Tokyo commuters and poisoned many others with sarin gas in 1995 — seems like something out of a bad manga. What could have possessed so many well-educated middle-class people, to follow Shoko Asahara, a deranged guru who taught a mishmash...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 2, 2015
'Persona Non Grata' a dramatic nod to Sugihara's legacy
Refugees are much in the news now, though the U.S. media commonly refers to the Syrians struggling to enter Europe as "migrants." The reason: Together with genuine refugees fleeing from slaughter are so-called economic migrants seeking a better life in the West — and a news article is not always the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 25, 2015
Hideo Nakata's 'Ghost Theater' recalls true horror
A decade or so ago, J-horror (Japanese horror) was a hot genre worldwide. Thinking they had a sure-fire box-office formula — implacable ghosts scaring the bejesus out of attractive women — filmmakers mass-produced sequels, spinoffs and knock-offs, to mostly diminishing returns.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Nov 25, 2015
Welsh filmmaker John Williams has made it in Japan against all odds
It's not easy for anyone to make indie films in Japan. Audiences, venues and funds are all shrinking. And if you are not Japanese, you face additional barriers of language, culture and credibility. Even if your name is the only foreign one on the credits, many will consider your film not "really" Japanese,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 18, 2015
Kohei Oguri's 'Foujita' struggles to win over foreign audiences
Veteran auteur Kohei Oguri's first film in 10 years, "Foujita" is a biopic of artist Tsuguharu "Leonard" Foujita. The toast of prewar Paris for his elegantly drawn women and cats, Foujita radically switched styles on his return to a militarized Japan and his propaganda art for the war effort was heavily...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 18, 2015
Fukada's 'Sayonara' captures android intimacy
'We all die alone" is a thought voiced by the famous (Hunter S. Thompson and Orson Welles among them), but it seems to state the obvious. We also all have toothaches alone, do we not?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 11, 2015
Ryosuke Hashiguchi's inspired drama about love and loss
Watching recent Japanese films, I often have the feeling that their makers need an imagination injection, or simply need to get out more. It's not just that few, especially at the commercial end of the spectrum, work from original scripts. Plenty of great movies are adapted from other media.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 4, 2015
Chihiro Ikeda's 'Tokyo no Hi' is a worthy addition to the slacker genre
Can we please cut the Japanese movie slacker some slack? Usually a guy past the age when most contemporaries have entered official adulthood — defined here as holding a full-time (if not necessarily lifetime) job — the slacker hero makes do with part-time gigs, or spinning his unemployed wheels....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Nov 4, 2015
'Unbroken' finally gets a break in Japan
For the better part of a year, "Unbroken" has been unwatchable in Japanese theaters.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 28, 2015
'Boku wa Bosan' depicts the mundane reality of life as a Japanese monk
One thing I learned on coming to Japan as an earnest foreign student of Buddhism was that the young monks — those shaven-headed fellows in picturesque robes diligently sweeping the temple grounds — are less ascetic than they look. Off duty, they knock back beers, warble at karaoke bars and in general...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 22, 2015
Tokyo film festival ups its domestic fare
The 28th edition of the Tokyo International Film Festival, which began yesterday, is the biggest event on the Japanese film calendar. And like any such event, TIFF has had its share of critics over the years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2015
Androids and the avant-garde: The best Japanese films screening at TIFF
The Tokyo International Film Festival offers a once-a-year chance to see Japanese movies, both new and classic, with English subtitles. Getting tickets, however, especially for the films in the Competition and Special Screenings sections, may not be easy. With that caveat, here are my personal picks...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Oct 21, 2015
The foreign element at the Kyoto International Film and Art Festival
While covering the recently ended second edition of the Kyoto International Film and Art Festival, I again realized that being a non-native isn't always such a bad deal in a country that prides itself on its omotenashi (hospitality) to outsiders.
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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