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August 15, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 25, 2008
'Zenzen Daijobu'
Japanese comedies today come in two broad categories: frantic, surreal ones of the Kankuro Kudo ("Maiko Haaaan!!!") sort and ironic, realistic ones from the Nobuhiro Yamashita ("Linda, Linda, Linda") corner.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 24, 2008
Ex-janitor cleans up with comic gem
Winner of the Grand Prize in the short film section at the 1987 Torino Film Festival in Italy, Yosuke Fujita may have been making films for more than two decades, but it's only now that audiences have the chance to see the director's first full-length feature. "Zenzen Daijobu (Fine, Totally Fine)" is...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2008
'Hito no Sex o Warau na'
The romantic combination of an older woman and a younger man is common now in Hollywood films, which have come a long way since the day when a young (actually 30-year-old) Dustin Hoffman threw over a middle-age (actually 36-year-old) Anne Bancroft in "The Graduate." As film critic Roger Ebert astutely...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2008
'Giniro no Season'
Japan tries to sell itself as the land of cherry blossoms and Mount Fuji, but some of its best natural highs can be found on its ski slopes, as the world discovered at the 1972 Hokkaido and 1996 Nagano Winter Olympics.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 4, 2008
'Hokushin Naname ni Sasu Tokoro'
The old school tie is strong for many Japanese, especially members of the dwindling prewar generation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2007
'Kazoku no Hiketsu'
The Kansai region, which includes the cities of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, is Japan's comedy center. The biggest comedy talent agency, Yoshimoto Kogyo, is based in Osaka and its comics mostly deliver their quips in the Kansai dialect.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 14, 2007
'Little DJ'
What is the hottest genre right now in Japanese film? J-Horror is pretty much dead, though horror as a genre is about as likely to die as Dracula. Anime is still mostly for kiddies and otaku (obsessives), with the massive exception of Studio Ghibli offerings. Blurring the line between animation and live...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 7, 2007
'Tsubaki Sanjuro'
The films of Akira Kurosawa have generated far more remakes than those of any other Japanese director, beginning with the John Sturges 1960 Western "The Magnificent Seven," a reworking of Kurosawa's "Shichinin no Samurai (Seven Samurai)."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 30, 2007
'Hannari — Geisha Modern'
Over the years, many people have asked me why I bother to review Japanese films, when so few non-Japanese-speaking foreigners can fully appreciate them.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 23, 2007
'Midnight Eagle'
Why do national cinemas excel in some genres but not in others? Whatever its many sins, Hollywood makes thrillers that for sheer visceral kicks — car chases! explosions! Matt Damon leaping across a chasm through a tiny open window! — are the global standard.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 16, 2007
'Sundome'
Straight-to-video films, locally called "V Cinema," launched the careers of some of the most important directors of the New Wave of the 1990s, including Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Rokuro Mochizuki.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 9, 2007
'Ten Ten'
Some directors are like fashion brands, churning out immediately identifiable product the same way again and again. Others are more like a hot stock: a spectacular rise, followed by an equally spectacular fall. There are also those who are like an underperforming athlete who suddenly changes into a worldbeater....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 2, 2007
'Always Zoku 3-chome no Yuhi'
Are the Japanese more nostalgic than the rest of us? It's hard to say, but here cinematic look-backs tend to be more bittersweet than in the West, especially films set in Tokyo, which was obliterated in World War II and has undergone several reincarnations in the six decades since.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 1, 2007
Eyes on Japan's crazed radicalism, twisted psychology
This year's Tokyo International Film Festival was a bit different for me. For the first time since 2003 I was not on the jury for Japanese Eyes, a section spotlighting Japanese movies that might otherwise get lost in the glare of big commercial releases. This gave me more leeway to pick and choose what...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 26, 2007
'Quiet Room ni Yokoso'
I once did a story on a psychiatric hospital in a Tokyo suburb, in what now seems like a previous life. After an interview with the hospital director, I toured the wards and chatted with the patients. One, a middle-age housewife type, told me frankly that she was there for alcoholism. She struck me as...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 19, 2007
'Appleseed: Ex-Machina'
"Appleseed," Shinji Aramaki's sci-fi animation based on a Shirow Masamune comic, was hailed as ground-breaking when it opened in 2004. Not so much for its story, which recycled tired dystopian, man-as-machine tropes from many sources, including Masamune's better-known manga "Kokaku Kidotai (Ghost In...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2007
'0093 Jo Heika no Kusakari Masao'
The Japanese film industry makes many comedies, but few parodies of the "Airplane," "Naked Gun" or "Austin Powers" variety. This is puzzling, since Japanese comedy directors have been borrowing freely from Hollywood for generations, including Koki Mitani ("Uchoten Hotel"), who worships at the altar of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2007
'Southbound'
"Family Game," Yoshimitsu Morita's 1983 black comedy about a sardonic, sadistic home tutor — played by Yusaku Matsuda — who ruthlessly exposes the dysfunctions of a "normal" middle-class family, made Morita, temporarily, the Takeshi Kitano of his era.
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.
Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.

Podcast

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

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’
Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

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