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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
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 3, 2012

Koki Mitani: Japan's Mr. Comedy

Koki Mitani is far and away the nation's best-known dramatist. Although theater is quite a niche medium here, most people in Japan — whether male or female, young or not so young, Japanese or not — recognize his face, even if they couldn't name many of his works. Recently, indeed, I was amazed when...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 17, 2011

Tokyo and Yokohama festival celebrates the art of brevity

Short films have traditionally been seen as a director's starting block toward making their first feature. Yet with the art of filmmaking becoming ever cheaper, many have been sidestepping the short-film format, instead heading straight for a low-budget feature film. Yet short films are an art form in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 22, 2014

Vision of anime's future at Tokyo International Film Festival

The Tokyo International Film Festival, running through Oct. 31, is no longer Asia's biggest or most important festival — that honor is now claimed by the recently held rival Busan film festival. But its 27th edition — the first to reflect the full influence of TIFF's current director-general, Yasushi...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Jan 19, 2013

Oshima was in a realm of his own

Film director Nagisa Oshima passed away Tuesday. He was 80.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 22, 2004

Can't hold down a good stereotype

Kiss of Life Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Emily Young Running time: 86 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Nathalie ... Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Anne Fontaine Running time: 105 minutes Language: French Currently...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 13, 2016

Despite controversy, the Busan International Film Festival is as strong as ever

The 21st edition of Asia's biggest movie event, the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which took place from Oct. 6 to 15, almost didn't happen; or, at least, that's the story being told. Actually, considering how important the festival is for South Korea's movie industry, one of the most vital...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 7, 2009

Apichatpong Weerasethakul: No ordinary Joe

Perhaps no Asian film director since Akira Kurosawa has received the critical attention bestowed on 39 year-old Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. His "Blissfully Yours" won a major Cannes Festival prize in 2002; "Tropical Malady," took the 2004 Jury Prize and the Tokyo FilmEx first prize; and...
CULTURE / Film
Sep 26, 2001

Asia's best shine at cinema showcase

Film festivals are addictive, especially if you've got that magical piece of laminated paper called a press pass. Volunteers smile at you, directors schmooze with you and theater doors swing open for you at the flash of a badge. Best of all, you can spend all day watching movies with no guilty feelings...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 5, 2017

Roger Ross Williams documents one young man's Disney-indebted triumphs in 'Life, Animated'

When Owen Suskind was 3 years old, he suddenly "vanished," according to his mother, Cornelia. The vivacious little boy she knew had retreated into a shell of silence from which he refused to emerge, and doctors diagnosed him with autism.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 15, 2016

'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' takes some cues from a galaxy not so far away

By the time you read this, the hype will have already begun. Dec. 16 marks the day "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" starts showing in cinemas around the world. Promotional campaigns began in Japan weeks ago.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 3, 2016

Momoi is on fire in her new indie film 'Hee'

In her four-decade acting career Kaori Momoi has always been a free-spirited stand-out, indifferent to convention. But beneath her easygoing attitude and signature drawling delivery (which used to make me wonder what she had been ingesting before the cameras started rolling) was a thorough professionalism...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2013

Busan is still Asia's film-fest gem, but its sparkle is fading

During the Q&A session after the screening of his new film "Stray Dogs" at the 18th Busan International Film Festival, which ran Oct. 3-12, Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang mentioned that not only was his previous film not distributed in South Korea, it wasn't even shown at BIFF. Tsai was one of the...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 21, 2010

Animation fest sparkles

A collection of surreal, witty and thought-provoking short animation films currently showing at the Laputa Animation Festival 2010 in Asagaya, western Tokyo, stands splendidly apart from the plethora of mainstream anime works that vie for airtime on Japanese TV.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 12, 2004

Ozon playing God

Just a few years back director Francois Ozon was one of France's enfants terribles, his films like "Sitcom" (1998) or "Criminal Lovers" (1999) often mentioned in the same breath as those of Gaspar Noe or Catherine Breillat. These days, though, Ozon is better known for his sensitive, subtly perceptive...
CULTURE / Film
Oct 31, 2001

The nail that sticks out -- defiantly

Go Rating: * * * * Director: Isao Yukisada Running time: 122 minutes Language: Japanese Now showing
CULTURE / Film
Jun 20, 2001

Lord, bless this cinematic mess

The Guys From Paradise Rating: * * * 1/2 Director: Takashi Miike Running time: 114 minutes Language: Japanese Now showing at Shibuya Cine Palace and other theaters Takashi Miike may end up as the Seijun Suzuki of his generation. In the 1960s, Suzuki was a toiler on the Nikkatsu B-movie assembly line,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 14, 2021

Director Akio Fujimoto pushes for more diversity in Japanese film

When Akio Fujimoto cast three Vietnamese actresses in a movie about the Vietnamese experience, he was actually doing something rather rare in the Japanese film industry.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2019

'Afternoon Breezes': Hitoshi Yazaki's pioneer of Japanese LGBTQ cinema is revisited

What was Japan's first LGBTQ-themed film? One often-mentioned candidate is Keisuke Kinoshita's 1959 melodrama "Farewell to Spring," though more for the emotional ties between its young male protagonists than anything explicitly erotic. More upfront in its treatment — and more critically acclaimed —...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2017

Japan's main film festival has come a long way from the days of 'bubble era' excess

The Tokyo International Film Festival, which begins on Oct. 25, will celebrate its 30th edition this year. It was first held in 1985 and I started attending it, as a reporter, in 1991.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 3, 2013

'Evil Dead'

When Sam Raimi's low-budget splatter flick "The Evil Dead" emerged in 1983, it had the same sort of queasy impact you get when you hear a thud and feel something dragging under your tires. "The Evil Dead" was a terrifying and ghoulish film like no other, a signpost of sorts, marking new territory on...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 8, 2013

Plotting director Sam Raimi's unlikely path to Oz

There's a moment in "Oz the Great and Powerful," Disney's much-anticipated prequel to the 1939 MGM classic "The Wizard of Oz," where a character falls to the floor, in the midst of a witchy transmogrification into something evil. Off-screen she remains until suddenly, with a heart-stopping smack, a huge...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 30, 2010

Hikari Mitsushima: from pop idol to screen diva?

Up until last year, 24-year-old Hikari Mitsushima was best known as a former member of the Okinawan idol group Folder 5.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 29, 2008

'Youth Without Youth'

Ever since he first hit it big with "The Godfather" way back in 1972, Francis Ford Coppola has made noises about saying goodbye to Hollywood, taking the money and making small, uncompromising independent films. With the exception of "The Conversation" (1974), that never happened, with Coppola seemingly...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 3, 2003

In between art and life

"Gokann," the umbrella name given to three exhibitions of contemporary Finnish art now showing in Kyoto, is an accommodating term. The Japanese title was chosen for its multiplicity of meanings, all derived from typing in "g-o-k-a-n-n" on a computer then pressing the kanji-convert key. Those varied meanings...
CULTURE / Film
Oct 31, 2001

No remembrance of things past

Memento Rating: * * * * * Director: Christopher Nolan Running time: 113 minutes Language: English Now showing
Andrijana Cvetkovikj is the senior programmer for the Women’s Empowerment section at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival. The former ambassador also works to promote young filmmakers in Japan’s film industry.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Oct 24, 2024

Andrijana Cvetkovikj: ‘We have to create more opportunities for women to be playing on equal ground’

The former Macedonian ambassador to Japan is also playing a part in promoting younger film directors in the country's movie industry.
The social media backlash to “Barbenheimer,” an internet trend centered on the simultaneous release of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” in the United States, led to the hashtag #NoBarbenheimer trending recently on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
CULTURE / Film
Aug 2, 2023

‘Barbenheimer’ memes trigger anger in atomic-bombed Japan

Warner Bros. Japan criticized its U.S. counterpart for participating in internet memes that appear to trivialize the effects of the atomic bombings.
Gary Perlman has developed a kabuki adaptation of “Madame Butterfly” that he hopes will be performed 100 years from now.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Nov 7, 2024

Gary Perlman: ‘Kabuki is pure entertainment … the characters and themes are universal’

In adapting "Madame Butterfly" for kabuki, the man behind the production hopes to reframe the tale with stronger female characters.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?