Search - u_times

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 22, 2004

Getting under the skin of a serial killer

After "Hannibal" et al., seeing another serial killer flick was about as pleasant a prospect as being buried alive. It was a nice surprise, then, to find that director Patty Jenkins had made an intelligent, genre-defying film grounded in reality. Jenkins, who also wrote the screenplay, has been riding...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 22, 2004

Stop usif you'veheard thisone before

The Quiet American Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Philip Noyce Running time: 101 minutes Language: English Now showing [See Japan Times movie listings] When Graham Greene penned his novel "The Quiet American" in 1954, he was set on capturing a particular point in time in late,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 22, 2004

Let's dance to those rhythms

To the soft tinkle of a music box, a solitary couple twirls on stage, spinning faster and faster as the whispering voices of the night entice them. Suddenly the doll-like figures vanish, and the stage and auditorium erupt in a blaze of nightclub beats. The floor vibrates to the rhythm of three-dozen...
MORE SPORTS
Sep 21, 2004

Kawashima defends WBC title

Japan's Katsushige Kawashima scored a unanimous decision over Raul Juarez of Mexico on Monday to retain his WBC superflyweight crown at Yokohama Cultural Gymnasium.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Sep 20, 2004

Despite reforms, future looks grim without consumption tax hike

In the "Okuda Vision (Japan 2025)" report released in January 2003, Keidanren used a simulation to present the medium to longer-term prospects for Japan's fiscal and social security systems. We made it clear that the measures which would be needed to maintain the sustainability of national and local...
COMMENTARY
Sep 20, 2004

Japan's diplomatic might

In late August, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi visited four Central Asian states to build a new framework of regional dialogue. The creation of the "Central Asia Plus Japan" forum means that Japan is pushing strategic diplomacy in the geopolitically important Silk Road region, surrounded by Russia,...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 19, 2004

Suffering survivor's guilt

PURPLE SUN, by Lawrence McAuliffe. Hinesburg, VT: Upper Access Books, 2003, 233 pp., $12.95 (paper). In this short work, a U.S. Marine named Billy Kern cracks up and deserts his unit to remain behind in Vietnam after the war. Twenty-eight years later, a master sergeant and officer who knew him go back...
Japan Times
Features
Sep 19, 2004

A flavor of Lima with Fujimori to the fore

Visit any Latin dance club and you'll hear the salsa music blaring well before you get through the doors. But this month at dance clubs across Japan there'll be another sound as well: the buzz over a new, free-of-charge magazine on Peruvian life in this country that's being distributed not only at clubs...
Japan Times
Features
Sep 19, 2004

Just picture that!

The overthrow of the feudal Tokugawa Shogunate in 1867 and the restoration of imperial rule in 1868 was preceded by 15 years of intense change in news reporting.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 19, 2004

Cubist on the turntables

A cacophony of electronic bleeps and disjointed drum rolls kick off the second and latest CD "Sensation" by Ryo Kato, aka DJ Klock. What follows is a series of drill-like drum riffs that start, stop then start again several times before settling into a jerky hip-hop-like beat. Later, this transient groove...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 18, 2004

Referees an easy target of blame for managers, players, media

LONDON -- Last weekend was such a bad one for referees that the man from the Daily Mirror was desperately searching for someone to speak up on behalf of the off-form officials.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 18, 2004

The perfect touch for fall: Christmas

Every eight years, our neighborhood has "matsuri toban," or festival duty, which means we are in charge of all the island festivals for the year. One house within that neighborhood volunteers to set up decorations, receive guests at festival times and host the Shinto gods for the year.
Rugby
Sep 17, 2004

Rugby's top stars hoping to help Top League live up to its name

Toutai Kefu, Matt Cockbain, Jaco van der Westhuyzen, Tony Brown, Leon MacDonald. Besides being a who's who of some of the biggest names to have played in the Super 12 in recent years they are also just a few of the world-class players who will be turning out this year in Japan's Top League.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 17, 2004

Shiroyama bravely battles on

In matters of war, history is most often recounted from the perspective of the conqueror and rarely, if ever, passed down from the point of view of the defeated. So it's not surprising that the historical significance of the remnants of 16th-century Hachioji Castle on western Tokyo's Mount Fukazawa --...
Rugby
Sep 17, 2004

JRFU'S new ruling puts players' lives at risk

At the press conference to launch the start of the second year of the Top League, which kicks-off this weekend, Japan Rugby Football Union Chairman Tetsuo Machii admitted that the game's image had suffered in recent years.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 17, 2004

Food fit for a doge on canals of Venice

Eating where the tourists eat is always a risky proposition, especially in a city like Venice, whose sole raison d'e^tre is tourism. Along the city's main arteries and tourist sites, the restaurants are often disappointing -- and sometimes even disastrous. But, as we found on a quick visit there earlier...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 16, 2004

The changes that come what may

The arrival of just one dramatic, even devastating, typhoon, storming to the center of the seasonal stage like a massively overblown diva with a case of bad timing, is enough to signal autumn is on its way. This year the global signs of the season change have been untempered in the extreme. Hurricanes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 15, 2004

Here's to a classic 'comeback'

The Return Rating: * * * * 1/2(out of 5) Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev Running time: 111 minutes Language: Russian with Japanese subtitles Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of the global corporate culture that's spread like mold over...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 15, 2004

You can't beat an old master

Coffee Jiko Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Hou Hsiao- hsien Running time: 103 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Yasujiro Ozu's trademark style -- the low camera angles, the straight cuts, the actors talking at the camera in medium closeup...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 15, 2004

Inside out and round and round the Yamanote

Johnnie Walker's A.R.T. gallery (Art Residency Tokyo), which opened last October, extends his philanthropic mission to promote cultural exchange between foreign and Japanese artists. Offering a window into Tokyo for many young hopefuls as well as a meeting point for the more established, the gallery...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 15, 2004

A robot could have scripted this

I, Robot Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Alex Proyas Running time: 115 minutes Language: English Opens Sept. 18 [See Japan Times movie listings] When was the last time you were enthralled by a big-budget sci-fi flick?
COMMENTARY
Sep 15, 2004

The Tiananmen Square massacre myth

China's recent ceremonies to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of former leader Deng Xiaoping have given the Tiananmen massacre myth yet another lease of life. Most media commentators, the BBC especially, have rehashed the standard condemnation of Deng as a hardliner who instigated a massacre of...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 14, 2004

Japan and the immigration issue

Japan is not ready or willing to accept an immigrant influx, says Barry Brophy One of the great givens regarding Japan's aging population and declining birthrate is that an influx of immigrants, or "replacement migration," is needed if the nation's pension burden is not to become unmanageable, and the...
Japan Times
Features
Sep 12, 2004

Heights of cleanliness

What must it be like to stand on top of the world's highest mountain? To battle through driving snow and across deadly glaciers, to scale icy rock walls and risk falling thousands of meters while being hit full-on by raging, freezing winds -- aware that an avalanche could, at any moment, swat you into...
Features
Sep 12, 2004

Mount Fuji: Symbol of beauty; mountain of shame

Thinking "green" may seem to be a modern notion, but in Japan it's as old as the hills -- at least those ones climbed by innumerable yamabushi ascetics on grueling mountain pilgrimages in search of enlightenment.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 11, 2004

Will Souness be able to make a difference for Newcastle?

LONDON -- There is a famous line by Groucho Marxo where he says he would never be a member of a club that would have him as a member.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 11, 2004

Slow progress for Pyongyang

BRUSSELS -- In July 2002, North Korea instituted wage and price reforms that officially introduced the market into the economy. Such change had been on the horizon since the famine of the late 1990s, driven by a certain inevitability as the distribution system started to creak and stutter. Informal --...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Sep 10, 2004

Imbibing without the pain

Last month's column on sulfite myths generated quite a bit of feedback. Most ran along the lines of "I'll grant you the point on sulfites not being the cause, but any idea then of why I can drink white wines without any problem, but end up with a headache from just a glass of red?" A few more prodigious...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 8, 2004

Tangled in the helix

Code 46 Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Michael Winterbottom Running time: 93 minutes Language: English Opens Sept. 11 [See Japan Times movie listings] In "Code 46," the dynamics of boy-meets-girl is explained not as destiny but as a genetic consequence. In the near-future world...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 8, 2004

Director follows kabuki offstage to find the essence of onnagata

Musume Dojoji Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Yukiko Takayama Running time: 110 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Kabuki plays were an important source of material for early Japanese filmmakers, conferring prestige and popularity on their...

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat