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November 23, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 14, 2015
The future of comedy looks bleak in 'Galaxy Turnpike'
Comedy is hard. That's what many comedians say, at least. Think of Charlie Chaplin filming hundreds of takes per immortal gag.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Oct 14, 2015
Restored and rediscovered Kon Ichikawa films to screen at TIFF
With the centennial of his birth this year, Promethean director Kon Ichikawa (1915-2008) is due for a revival. The upcoming Tokyo International Film Festival is accordingly screening three of his films in its new Japanese Cinema Classics section.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 7, 2015
'Bakuman' depicts a life-or-death quest for manga success
High school kids dream big dreams, and in Japan one of the biggest is to be a successful manga artist. The financial rewards for a hit manga published in a national magazine and sold in paperback editions are substantial. And the accompanying recognition and power — with adoring fans pleading for autographs...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 30, 2015
Quadruple amputee yakuza raises hell in 'Daruma'
Yakuza are not usually thought of as disabled, but more than a few have had their pinky fingers, or a section thereof, sliced off with a blade. Traditionally, this disabling is punishment for violating the gang code.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 23, 2015
An unlikely partnership between women blooms in 'Rasen Ginga'
A fresh, incisive take on a common if little-filmed type of relationship, especially in hierarchy-loving Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 16, 2015
Japan through the lens of its film genres
As a new reporter for a movie trade magazine, I quickly learned that every film has its genre — even ones that don't play by genre rules. The industry slices genre-straddling films into discrete categories: action, comedy, sci-fi, etc. Call it crude, but this system serves a purpose: If you're a buyer...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 16, 2015
Girls take charge of their love lives in 'Chigasaki Story'
Koji Fukada's 2013 beach film "Hotori no Sakuko" ("Au Revoir l'Ete") was a loving homage to French master Eric Rohmer, with lengthy European-style vacations bestowed on Fukada's Japanese protagonists.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 9, 2015
Schoolgirls with dubious impulses run wild in 'Our Huff and Puff Journey'
When I was living in a student sharehouse, a fellow resident proposed breaking into a nearby public pool for a midnight swim.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Sep 9, 2015
Kyoto International Art and Film Festival is a challenge to Tokyo's cultural power
The Kyoto International Film and Art Festival, which takes place from Oct. 15 to 18 in Japan's ancient capital, began as a sort of challenge to the local film industry's power center, Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 2, 2015
'Neko Samurai 2' finds a swordsman and his feline shipwrecked on a tropical island
Japanese audiences have long loved movies about dogs and cats. But non-Japanese critics and festival programmers? Not so much. The rampant sentimentalism and blatant commercialism of these films have stuck in the craw of many critics.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 26, 2015
Ex-AKB48 star resists a sleazy stranger on train in 'Round Trip Heart'
Pushing a food-and-drinks cart on an express train used to be a something of a glamour job for young Japanese women (or something of a comedown if they aspired to be flight attendants).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Aug 26, 2015
Will another Miyazaki save Japanese cinema from Hollywood?
In the 1990s, when I was reporting on the Japanese film business for a British trade magazine, big-budget Hollywood movies with splashy special effects dominated the local box office. And the industry consensus was that resistance — in the form of made-in-Japan effects extravaganzas — was futile....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 19, 2015
A militaristic turn for the Japanese film industry
Why have Japanese filmmakers recently been turning out so many films about World War II and its aftermath? The obvious answer is that they're commemorating the 70th anniversary of that war's end, which was marked on Aug. 15. But there are far fewer new films about WWII in most of the countries that fought...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 19, 2015
'At Home' paints a terrible portrait of crime and family in Japan
So you want to make a movie about a happy family with a burglar dad, swindler mom and three smiling kids who have no problems with what their parents do for a living? Surely the obvious — indeed only — approach to a film like this is to make it a black comedy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 15, 2015
Memoir of Akira Kurosawa's right-hand man reveals a history of vexed scripts
The films of Akira Kurosawa used to be the gateway into Japanese cinema for many non-Japanese. (That role has since been assumed by the films of Hayao Miyazaki and other animators.)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 12, 2015
Love blooms like incendiary bombs in 'Kono Kuni no Sora'
Veteran scriptwriter Haruhiko Arai spent three decades trying to adapt Yuichi Takai's 1983 novel "Kono Kuni no Sora" ("This Country's Sky") for the screen — and the wait was worth it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 5, 2015
A more complex portrayal of Emperor Hirohito
Emperor Hirohito, who is posthumously known as Emperor Showa, had a procession of public images during his long reign from 1926 to 1989 — though none were quite accurate.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 5, 2015
Cannibalism and confusion in live-action 'Attack on Titan'
Stories about giants are ancient and universal. It isn't hard to understand why: Children are born into a world populated by big, lurching terrors with bad breath and enormous teeth — or is that Uncle Frank just trying to be chummy?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 29, 2015
'Obon no Ototo' is one director's attempt to portray his real life through a fictional self
'Life imitates art far more than art imitates life," quipped Oscar Wilde, but in the film world mining one's own life for the sake of art — or rather, a script — is an ancient and hallowed practice. The resulting film, however, may have only a tenuous relationship with the filmmaker's actual biography....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 29, 2015
Tokyo International Film Festival promises a more diverse selection this year
Second-guessing the programming of the annual Tokyo International Film Festival is a favorite sport of movie types in Japan — I've been doing it myself for years.
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.

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