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November 22, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 14, 2012
'Gummo Ebian! (G'mor Evian!)'
When teenagers see their parents goofing around or generally not acting their ancient age, they often react with embarrassment, scorn or the fervent wish that these so-called adults would just grow up. Then inevitably, not long later, those sophisticated 15-year-olds are goofing around themselves —...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 7, 2012
'MIS: Human Secret Weapon' / 'Santa Kurosu wo Tsukamaete (Chasing Santa Claus)'
Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, thousands of Japanese-Americans, including those born and raised in the United States, were shipped to internment camps, while others joined the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which fought with great bravery in the European theater.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 2, 2012
The ever-evolving digital movie world
JAPANESE CINEMA IN THE DIGITAL AGE, by Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano. University of Hawaii Press, 2012, 178 pp., $47 (hardcover) The world film industry, including Japan's, is now completing a changeover from traditional film stock to digital substitutes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 30, 2012
'Karasu no Oyayubi (Crow's Thumb)'
Genres come with expectations, often advertised right on the poster. The one for Tadafumi Ito's "Karasu no Oyayubi (Crow's Thumb)" shows star Hiroshi Abe and his supporting cast looking well dressed and mostly wised-up, which makes good genre sense since they are playing con artists plotting to cheat...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 23, 2012
'Mimi wo Kaku Onna (The Ear Cleaner)'
Is there a body part that is not, for someone, an erogenous zone? Feet have their fans. So do eyes, noses and, as Hiroshi Horiuchi's "Mimi wo Kaku Onna (The Ear Cleaner)" makes clear, ears.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 16, 2012
'Fugainai Boku wa Sora wo Mita (The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky)'
What is your worst nightmare? In this Internet age, public shaming by misdirected tweet or surreptitious smartphone snap has come to rank high. Of course, the sex video that just happens to go viral has propelled more than one "victim" to stardom (or at least a reality-show version of it), but far more...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 9, 2012
'The Power of Two'
Chronic respiratory disease is something I've lived with as a parent. My son's severe asthma had him in and out of hospitals and doctor's offices from infancy on, including several life-threatening emergencies. Thankfully, as he grew to adulthood, the bad episodes became fewer, though there is never...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 2, 2012
'Kita no Kanariatachi (A Chorus of Angels)'
Sayuri Yoshinaga has appeared in more than 100 films since winning the hearts of millions in the 1960s playing spunky, pure-spirited teens for the Nikkatsu studio. Her legions of admirers, called "Sayurists," have remained steadfast over the decades, while she herself has overcome personal and professional...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 26, 2012
Sono: 'Disaster survivors spoke more frankly to me than to NHK'
Sion Sono is known for making extreme films that get invited to major festivals. One is "Himizu," a drama set near the Tohoku disaster zone post-March 11, 2011, and whose abused teenage hero seethes with violent rage — and unleashes it on a classmate equally ill-treated by her parents. When it screened...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 26, 2012
'Kibo no Kuni (The Land of Hope)'
Not long ago Sion Sono was known abroad mainly as a maker of cult shockers, starting with his 2001 international hit "Jisatsu Sakuru (Suicide Club)."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 19, 2012
Understand Japanese cinema
The Tokyo International Film Festival, which runs Oct. 20-28 at Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills and other venues around the capital and the Tohoku region, is a great opportunity to see new Japanese films — with a couple caveats.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2012
'Koi ni Itaru Yamai (The End of Puberty)'
Gender bending in movies is usually a cue for comedy, especially when taken to more fantastic extremes, as when Debbie Reynolds plays a womanizer reincarnated as a woman in Vincente Minnelli's "Goodbye Charlie" (1964) or Satomi Kobayashi and Toshinori Omi play teens who switch bodies and minds in Nobuhiko...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2012
'Outrage Beyond'
Yakuza movies were once as easy to understand as white-hat-versus-black-hat Hollywood Westerns. A gang that upholds the traditional jingi code of yakuza "chivalry" is being out-fought, out-knifed and outgunned by ruthless, greedy rival hoods. Then a stoic lone outlaw, typically played by Ken Takakura,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 28, 2012
'Ashura (Asura)'
An anime with a sad-eyed waif as the hero must surely be something for the kiddies, no? Well no, if the waif carries a blood-stained axe and greedily devours human flesh like a starved wolf.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 14, 2012
'Tenchi Meisatsu (Tenchi: The Samurai Astronomer)'
After winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2009 for his funeral-business drama "Okuribito (Departures)," Yojiro Takita faced the usual dilemma of the successful: what to do for a followup? This onetime maker of risqué comedies about train gropers had since become a director-for-hire working...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 14, 2012
Nice guy actor Ryo Kase plays rough in 'Like Someone in Love'
There are two types of actors: ones who disappear into their roles and ones who make their roles disappear into them, playing versions of themselves in film after film.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Sep 9, 2012
Yamadera, the man with 1,000 voices
Prior to interviewing Koichi Yamadera, a top voice actor, mimic and TV celebrity, I thought it would be tacky to ask him for samples of his many voices, from the characters on the popular "Anpanman" kiddy cartoon show to the hero of Hitoshi Takekiyo's new animated horror-comedy "Hokago Middonaitazu (After...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 7, 2012
'Yume Uru Futari (Dreams for Sale)'
Ever since her 2003 directorial debut "Hebi Ichigo (Wild Berries)," a black comedy about a dysfunctional family, Miwa Nishikawa has been exploring the infinite human capacity for duplicity and the elusiveness of truth.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 31, 2012
'I'm Flash!'
Religious con-men have probably been around as long as religion itself, though we have no way of knowing what scams fake shamans were running in the caves.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 24, 2012
'Anata e (Dearest)'
To call Ken Takakura an icon is almost an understatement. He is not only one of the few stars left from the heyday of the studio era, but he has for decades embodied the sort of ideal Japanese male (stoic, self-sacrificing, unstoppable in a fight) who is vanishingly rare in real life. (Clint Eastwood...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
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.
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.
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.
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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world
mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world

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