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November 22, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 2, 2008
'Suna Dokei'
Japanese films based on manga (Japanese comics) are so common now that if I were a young Japanese writer ambitious for a big movie payday, I'd skip the scriptwriting classes and learn how to draw.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 25, 2008
'Park and Love Hotel'
A movie set in a love hotel, but without a single sex scene? A 59-year-old woman as the heroine? It's hard to imagine that particular pitch loosening purse strings at major Japanese media companies. A fatally ill teenager? That's more like it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 18, 2008
'Shaolin Girl'
Chihiro Kameyama, Japan's most successful film producer, is not a man to miss an opportunity. When Stephen Chow's comedy "Shaolin Soccer" became a smash in Japan in 2002, Kameyama had the idea of joining with Chow to make a Japanese spinoff. Now, six years later, we have "Shaolin Shojo (Shaolin Girl),"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 11, 2008
'Chesuto'
Japanese live-action films about teenagers are many, but about children, few. This is largely a box-office calculation — teenagers pay higher ticket prices than children. Also, children usually go to the theater for a feature-length version of a cartoon they know from television, though there are hugely...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 4, 2008
'Uta Tama'
The maxim from Ecclesiastes that "There is nothing new under the sun" applies especially to the movie business. "Swing Girls," a 2004 smash about a high-school girls swing band, begat "Hula Girls," a 2006 hit about a hula dance troupe in a 1960s mining town, which begat "Kanki no Uta (Ode to Joy)," a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 28, 2008
'Kung Fu Kun'
A "kids movie" in the current Japanese film business almost always means anime. It wasn't always thus — kids were the biggest fans of the Godzilla series and dozens of other nonanimated homegrown monster movies now vanished from the screens. They've also flocked to the "Spy Kids" films and similar...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 21, 2008
'Memo'
Some directors put their own neuroses on the screen, with attitudes ranging from the dramatically self-lacerating (Ingmar Bergman) to the comically self-deprecating (Woody Allen). Where actor-turned-director Jiro Sato departs from the messed-up norm in "Memo," his first feature film, is in the rawness...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2008
The final days of revolutionary struggle in Japan
The West sees the turbulent era of the late 1960s and early '70s principally through the lens of its own protesters and radicals, with America's war in Vietnam the focal point of activist anger. If it thinks about East Asia in this period at all, it is usually the China of Mao and the Red Guards, who...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 14, 2008
'Yurei vs. Uchujin'
Even film directors need a break from the routine, don't they? Especially Takashi Shimizu, who has spent much of this decade making seven installments of his hit "Grudge (Ju-on)" J-Horror franchise, including two films for Hollywood, about vengeful ghosts who move from victim to victim like viruses....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 7, 2008
'Gachi Boy'
Pro wrestling gets no respect, save from the fans who love watching it, and, as schoolboys, practice its moves. I was once one of those boys, trying out head butts (learned from Bobo Brazil) and karate chops (acquired from Rikidozan) on various victims, including my little brother.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 7, 2008
Lord of the ring Norihiro Koizumi
All of 27, Norihiro Koizumi began making films while in high school. On graduation from college in 2003, he joined the Robot production company in Tokyo and in 2006 directed his first theatrical feature, "Taiyo no Uta (Song of the Sun)" about a girl with a rare skin disease that makes exposure to the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 29, 2008
'Doko ni Iku no'
Japanese indie directors who made their reputations in the 1970s and '80s often have big gaps in their feature-film resumes. Sogo Ishii didn't make a feature for 10 years following 1984's "Gyakufunsha Kazoku (Crazy Family),"a groundbreaking black comedy. Mitsuo Yanagimachi, who burst onto the scene in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 29, 2008
Yoshihiko Matsui: The return of the underground king
Born in 1956, Yoshihiko Matsui worked with indie icon Sogo Ishii on his early films, including the seminal 1980 biker pic "Kuruizaki Thunder Road (Crazy Thunder Road)."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2008
'Naoko'
Ekiden — marathon relay races — may not be unique to Japan, but the sport has become uniquely popular here, with the biggest races, such as the Hakone Ekiden for university teams, garnering Olympic-like media attention and TV ratings.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 15, 2008
'Tasogare'
Pinku eiga (pink films) — hourlong soft-porn flicks with simulated sex and real, fleshed-out stories — aren't what they used to be in the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, they served as the training grounds for many of the top directors in Japan today, as well as often being more interesting and boundary-pushing...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 10, 2008
Risk-taking 'Cure' for J-Horror
THE FILMS OF KIYOSHI KUROSAWA: Master of Fear, by Jerry White. Berkeley, CA: Stonebridge Press, 2007, $19.95 (paper) Kiyoshi Kurosawa has been an international cult favorite since the release of "Cure," his breakthrough film, in 1997. Telling the strange tale of a blanked-out young man who hypnotizes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 8, 2008
'L Change the World'/'Team Batista no Eiko'
Movies, as an astute producer once told me, are news. Much of the medical news recently, from Japan and elsewhere, has been scary, including stories about out-of-control viruses and out-of-their-minds doctors and nurses who kill instead of cure their patients. So why make yet another dull J-Horror pic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2008
'Tokyo Shonen'
Ever watch BS-i, the satellite channel owned and operated by the TBS network? I thought not. Or maybe you did, flipping through the 100 or so channels on J-COM, giving it only a glance. Too bad, because under producer Tamon Andrew Niwa, BS-i has become a lab for interesting experiments in TV and film...
CULTURE / Film
Jan 31, 2008
Humanist harks back to cinema's golden age
How many directors make great movies after turning 70? John Huston did it with "The Dead," likewise Akira Kurosawa with "Ran" and Clint Eastwood with "Letters from Iwo Jima," but the numbers are few.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 31, 2008
Voice of dissent revives forgotten war memories
Yoji Yamada had just finished greeting the audience at the premiere of "Kaabee (Kabei: Our Mother)" at Tokyo's Marunouchi Piccadilly Theater when he sat down with The Japan Times.
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.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
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.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

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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