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April 08, 2025
 

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Mark Schilling
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...
CULTURE / Film
Apr 6, 2016
Tokyo Talkies seeks to broaden exposure to Indian films
Indian cinema is prolific and diverse, with 1,969 feature titles released by 20 regional film industries in 2014, but movie fans in Japan have few chances to see this vast output. (Let's not count Bollywood musicals playing silently on monitors in Indian restaurants.)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 30, 2016
'Bitter Honey': Fishing for the love of a writer
Films about elderly men falling for elusive young women (and utimately regretting it) go back to "The Blue Angel" (1930). One Japanese example is Kaneto Shindo's 1992 "Bokuto Kidan" ("The Strange Tale of Oyuki"), a biopic about writer Kafu Nagai and the prostitute he came to love. Unlike the deluded...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 23, 2016
Forever young: Riko Narumi gives up old roles
In 2000, Riko Narumi made her first appearance on TV at age 7. She has worked steadily in both television and film ever since, and has 24 entries in her filmography, ranging from the drama "Shindo"(2007), where she played a troubled teen piano prodigy, to quirky comedy "Seaside Motel" (2011), in which...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 23, 2016
'A Cappella' conjures up the spirit of revolution in 1960s Japan
When I see Japanese films set in the late 1960s and early '70s, at the height of student protests, I always feel that something is off, while knowing that the "something off" is me.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 23, 2016
Tokyo cafe to screen controversial short films by Iranian director Keywan Karimi
Iranian filmmaker Keywan Karimi has been sentenced to one year in prison and 223 lashes for making "Writing on the City," a movie authorities consider anti-government propaganda and an insult to the religion of Islam. His subject: The history of Tehran from the 1979 Revolution to the present, as shown...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 16, 2016
'Sailor Suit and Machine Gun: Graduation' hits all the wrong targets
Films about women in the yakuza world are many but real female gangsters are few, including women who inherit gang leadership from a husband or male relative.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 9, 2016
Okinawan prodigy returns to directing with 'Girl of the Sea'
The once-arduous process of becoming a movie director in Japan — involving university film studies and years of assistant-director serfdom — has been drastically simplified. Technically, you can now shoot a movie on your smartphone and edit it on your laptop, with your name in the credits after "Director."...
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 9, 2016
'Fukushima: A Nuclear Story' stands out among 3/11 documentaries
The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster has been examined in hundreds of documentaries to date, counting all media, nationalities and languages. But "Fukushima: A Nuclear Story" stands out for one simple, powerful reason: Its central figure, Italian journalist Pio d'Emilia, was among the first foreign reporters...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 2, 2016
'Oyster Factory' dredges up the dreams and fears of Japan's rural workers
Japanese documentaries tend to be blandly inoffensive, especially those dealing with sensitive topics. Typically, a velvet-voiced narrator sets the scene and a sympathetic interviewer lobs questions to her subjects as gently upbeat music plays in the background.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2016
Languorous women and amorous men in Wayne Wang's first Japanese film
An extended stay at a resort hotel, seaside villa or a similar escape hatch is only a dream for most of Japan's working adults. But local filmmakers — who are in the dream business — have made enough ensemble dramas about romantic/erotic entanglements in such places to launch a small subgenre. Wayne...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 17, 2016
Breaking into and out of Japanese show biz
Eiji Uchida's scabrous new comedy about the struggles of a down-and-out indie film director, "Lowlife Love" ("Gesu no Ai"), confirms what I have known for years: Japanese show business can be brutal to the weak or clueless. They end up used and discarded, like so many human Kleenexes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 17, 2016
'The Shell Collector' wields a healing kind of poison
In English, you usually don't want to be compared to marine life. "Cold fish," "shark" and "whale" are not often intended as compliments, and "come out of your shell" is commonly addressed to the anti-social.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 10, 2016
Grim universe of horror manga 'Litchi Hikari Club'
When I was 13, I belonged to a neighborhood gang called, ironically, "The Hoods." We committed minor acts of vandalism as a sort of game and talked about invading the turf of a rival gang a few blocks over (but never got around to it). We were, to put it plainly, idiots.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Feb 10, 2016
The 11th edition of the Osaka Asian Film Festival
Tokyo tends to suck up all the media oxygen when it comes to film festivals and events in this country, but there's plenty going on beyond the capital's borders, as evidenced by the Osaka Asian Film Festival. The 11th edition of the festival, unspooling March 4-13 at venues in Osaka, will present a wide-ranging...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 3, 2016
'Children of Iron' turns the parent-trap formula on its head
Mom and Dad decide to divorce and their kids try to bring them back together — it's a familiar story here, on screens big and small. And it's not hard to understand why: The kids nearly always succeed, making for a happy ending. Veteran hitmaker Yoji Yamada uses it for his first comedy in two decades,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 27, 2016
'The Actor' gets inside the mind of a struggling Japanese actor
How do Japanese actors do it? I don't mean the stars of mainstream films — those "multi-talents" that are busy 24/7 with TV, stage and advertising gigs — I'm talking about the legions of supporting actors who may have only a single scene or line in a film, or play a body floating in a river. How...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 20, 2016
J-horror master Yoshihiro Nakamura returns to form
Yoshihiro Nakamura entered the film world on a well-trodden path. After making 8 mm films while studying at Tokyo's Seijo University and winning a prize at the 1993 Pia Film Festival — a famous incubator for young Japanese filmmakers — he worked as an assistant director for Juzo Itami, Yoichi Sai...
Nissan says it will not take new U.S. orders for Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs
A Nissan manufacturing complex in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Nissan says it will not take new orders from the United States for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs following new auto tariffs levied by the U.S.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it
An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Nikkei plunges in third-biggest daily loss ever amid Trump tariff concerns
Pedestrians stand in front of an electronic board showing the numbers of the Nikkei Stock Average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange along a street in the Japanese capital on Monday.
Ride-hailing services spreading in Japan
Vehicles used for ride-hailing services in the city of Kiryu, in Gunma Prefecture
Taiwan eyes zero tariffs with U.S., pledges more investment
Kids view the area from a lookout point over cranes and containers at the Port of Keelung, Taiwan, on Thursday.
‘Let’s make it practical’: NATO chief eyes greater defense-industrial ties with Japan
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte plans to visit Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday — his first to the Indo-Pacific region since taking office in October, as he seeks to implement lessons from the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Tottori takes a bold leap forward in the arts
The city of Kurayoshi in Tottori Prefecture celebrated the opening of its public art museum with festivities such as a parade that drew 1,000 revelers.
Haruki Murakami TV adaptation revisits 30 years of watershed moments
Though Haruki Murakami's trademark whiff of offbeat existentialism is threaded throughout NHK's "After the Quake," the final episode — conceived as a sequel to the story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" — is the most stylized, featuring an anthropomorphic talking frog (voiced by Non) and his erstwhile associate Katagiri (Koichi Sato).
Nintendo to launch the Switch 2 on June 5
The controllers for the Switch 2 will attach to the console magnetically rather than sliding on rails as with the original device.
A new human trafficking trend emerges from Myanmar scam centers
Victims of scam centers who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar gather at a compound inside KK Park, a fraud center on the country's border with Thailand, after a multinational crackdown in February.

Podcast

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

Longform

An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it
By Alex K.T. Martin

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