author

 
Menu
Search
 
April 06, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

Meta

Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 27, 2014
'Shirayuki Hime Satsujin Jiken (The Snow White Murder Case)'
The Japanese are big fans of mysteries of the puzzle-plot sort, with murders committed in the kinds of odd and ingenious ways that real killers seldom use. The detective hero not only cracks the case, but delivers a detailed postmortem to an appreciative audience, somewhat like a chess master analyzing...
CULTURE / Film
Mar 27, 2014
'Kashikoi Inu wa Hoezu ni Warau (Shady)'
Director: Ryohei Watanabe
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Mar 27, 2014
Okinawa film fest gives fans an up-close view of the stars
Why go to Okinawa for movies? For anyone familiar with the international festival circuit, especially at its higher, artier end, the Okinawa International Movie Festival may well prompt this question — and a negative answer. "It's not a real film festival!" a fellow foreign journalist exclaimed to...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2014
'Tomodachi to Aruko (Walking With a Friend)'
Akira Ogata's "Tomodachi to Aruko (Walking with a Friend)," which screened in the Japanese Cinema Splash section of last year's Tokyo International Film Festival, is one of many recent Japanese films about the problems of the elderly in this rapidly graying country. Unlike nearly all these films, its...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2014
Kaidan Nobori Ryu (Blind Woman's Curse)
Director: Teruo Ishii
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 13, 2014
'Idai Naru, Shurara-bon (The Great Shurara-bon)'
Superheroes by definition have super powers. In Japan, instead of leaping tall buildings with a single bound, these heroes often shoot energy projectiles from their hands — easy and effective, save when your opponent has more wattage. This may seem childish, but it can be fun, as shown by all those...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 13, 2014
Kids Return: Saikai no Toki (Kids Return: The Reunion)
Director: Hiroshi Shimizu
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 6, 2014
Live-action Ghibli remake delivers a new Kiki
When is a remake not a remake? Arguably, Takashi Shimizu's "Majo no Takkyubin (Kiki's Delivery Service)" is less a reworking of the Hayao Miyazaki animation classic (which this reviewer praised on this page in 1989) than his own interpretation of the 1985 Eiko Kadono fantasy novel on which the Miyazaki...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 6, 2014
'Ieji (Homeland)'
Many documentaries have been made about the nuclear-plant disaster in Fukushima and its aftermath, but relatively few feature films. One reason could be seen in the rough handling local critics gave "Kibo no Kuni (The Land of Hope)," Sion Sono's 2012 film set in a near-future Japan that has again experienced...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2014
'Ai no Uzu (Love's Whirlpool)'
Sex and love — can the twain ever meet? In the world of fūzoku, a euphemism for Japan's enormous sex industry, that question is usually answered in the negative.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2014
'Futaba Kara Toku Hanarete (Nuclear Nation)'
Director: Atsushi Funahashi
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2014
Debate still rages over Abe-endorsed WWII drama
Takashi Yamazaki's World War II drama "Eien no Zero (The Eternal Zero)," whose pilot hero joins the tokkōtai (kamikaze) suicide squadron in the closing days of the war, has soared to the box office heights since its Dec. 21 release. After ranking No. 1 in the charts for eight weeks in a row, the film...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2014
'Tokyo Nanmin (Refugee in Tokyo)'
It can be easy to fall through the cracks of many societies, even one like Japan's that seems to have a wide safety net, beginning with Mom and Dad.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2014
'Manatsu no Houteishiki (Midsummer's Equation)'
Director: Keigo Higashino
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 13, 2014
'Iya Monogatari: Oku no Hito (The Tale of Iya)'
Cycling in the mountains near Tokyo, I often have two thoughts: First, I feel sorry for big-city denizens missing all the natural beauty so near. Second, I wonder how the locals can wrest a living from their tiny fields and orchards, perched precariously on the slopes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 13, 2014
'Color 4 Ozu: Eien Naru Ozu Color (Color 4 Ozu: Forever Ozu Color)'
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 6, 2014
'Mogura no Uta: Sennyu Sosakan Reiji (The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji)'
Directors in a profitable rut often feel the urge to try something new, even though the box office tells them to keep making the same old. Sometimes a change of genre can work wonders. After grinding out 48 episodes of the "Tora-san" dramedy series, Yoji Yamada ventured into the feudal past for the first...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 6, 2014
'R100'
Director: Hitoshi Matsumoto
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 30, 2014
'Dakishimetai: Shinjitsu no Monogatari (I Just Wanna Hug You)'
Of Japanese medical melodramas there is no end. Targeted largely at the female audience, they appear on the lineups of Toho and other major distributors with the regularity of cherry blossoms in April.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 30, 2014
'Kuroyuri Danchi' (The Complex)
Director: Hideo Nakata
3D printer used to construct train station building in Japan
A train station building (front) is assembled from parts printed using 3D printer technology, in Arida, Wakayama Prefecture, on Wednesday.
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.
Japan digs deep to address 'national crisis' caused by Trump tariffs
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a news conference at the Prime Minister's Office on April 1. He has said that Japan is facing a "national crisis" following the introduction of new tariffs by the United States.
Tokyo’s KK Line to close for decadelong overhaul as public greenway
People enjoy running and yoga on Tokyo Expressway’s KK Line, a 2-kilometer elevated expressway cutting through the capital’s commercial Ginza district, when it was opened as a pedestrian space in May last year.
Japan promises 'bold and speedy' response to Trump’s surprise 24% tariffs
U.S. President Donald Trump unveils new U.S. tariffs at the White House in Washington on Wednesday.
‘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

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)
BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER