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Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 16, 2016

Jo Kanamori and Oriza Hirata retell 'La Bayadere' with a dose of political awareness

The atmosphere at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia, must have been electric on Feb. 4, 1877. That was the day Austrian composer Ludwig Minkus premiered "La Bayadere" — the latest masterpiece of classical ballet by French choreographer Marius Petipa — to some of Europe's...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Jun 11, 2016

Film producer Georgina Pope: 'Work hard, play harder ... love what you do'

Australian producer recalls some memorable cinematic moments.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 10, 2016

Kowtowing L'Oreal shows lure of Chinese market

Sacrificing values is the price multinationals pay to access China's growing market of middle-class consumers.
JAPAN
May 28, 2016

U.S. to review Okinawa training procedures after report reveals sessions downplayed military crimes, disparaged locals

The top U.S. Marine general in Japan said orientation sessions for new recruits will be reviewed after it was found they contained derogatory statements about Okinawans.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 25, 2016

U.S. Marines briefing links crimes to 'gaijin power'; for Okinawans, 'it pays to complain'

Internal U.S. Marine Corps documents reveal that lectures supposed to improve marines' understanding of Okinawa instead downplay military crimes and disparage local residents.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 19, 2016

Japan's 'gatekeeper to Hollywood' Yoko Narahashi brings a playwright's final tale to the big screen with 'Hold My Hand'

Yoko Narahashi might just be the most powerful Japanese woman in Hollywood thanks to her work in casting blockbusters such as "The Last Samurai" and "The Wolverine." Her new film as a director, however, shuns special effects and battles, and focuses on a more intimate story.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 4, 2016

Welcome to Mars. Population: 1

As kids, many of us have experienced the fear of being left behind. Lost in a supermarket, panicking as your parents get too far ahead of you during a walk in the park ... now imagine being left on an entirely different planet.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 30, 2016

NHK may need to rethink its 'taiga' formula

An article that appeared in December in the Yomiuri Shimbun weighed the prospects for the 2016 edition of NHK's year-long historical taiga drama series, which premiered Jan. 10. "Sanada Maru" is the title of the 55th marathon show, and the name of a fortification added on to Osaka Castle to protect it...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Dec 26, 2015

Akira Kurosawa: Something Like An Autobiography

We sometimes forget that the great film director, Akira Kurosawa, was also an accomplished scriptwriter. In this, his wonderfully digressive autobiography, he rightly eschews the trivia of opening nights or the demands of leading ladies, to focus on the art of filmmaking, the role of director, the use...
CULTURE / Film
Dec 16, 2015

Kiki Sugino: 'I'm always looking for myself'

Kiki Sugino has a one-of-a-kind resume in the domestic movie business. Many are the young "multi-talents" who act, sing and model, but most are recruited, molded and marketed by an agency. From the start, this 31-year-old actor, director and producer took a more independent route toward multi-dom.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 1, 2015

'The Art of Furuya Usamaru'

Dec. 1-Jan. 11
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 18, 2015

The nostalgic legacy of Cannon Films

Cannon Films was an era-defining studio in the 1980s run by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who were like a monstrous cross-breed of Roger Corman and the Weinstein brothers. After succeeding in Israel in the '60s, the pair moved to LA, with Yoram rounding up the money and Menahem picking...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 11, 2015

Ryosuke Hashiguchi's inspired drama about love and loss

Watching recent Japanese films, I often have the feeling that their makers need an imagination injection, or simply need to get out more. It's not just that few, especially at the commercial end of the spectrum, work from original scripts. Plenty of great movies are adapted from other media.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 28, 2015

'Clouds of Sils Maria' tests the limits of female intimacy

OK, pop quiz. Guess who recently said the following: "The reasons why people make films here in France are very different from the reasons why people make movies in America, and I prefer it here a little bit."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 3, 2015

The long and short of male circumcision in Japan

For most of its history the Japanese archipelago knew nothing of circumcision. Contact with missionaries and merchants from Europe did little to raise awareness of the custom, and the procedure does not seem to have been a high priority for the promoters of Western ideas and technology during the Meiji...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 23, 2015

An unlikely partnership between women blooms in 'Rasen Ginga'

A fresh, incisive take on a common if little-filmed type of relationship, especially in hierarchy-loving Japan.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 15, 2015

Memoir of Akira Kurosawa's right-hand man reveals a history of vexed scripts

The films of Akira Kurosawa used to be the gateway into Japanese cinema for many non-Japanese. (That role has since been assumed by the films of Hayao Miyazaki and other animators.)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 12, 2015

Love blooms like incendiary bombs in 'Kono Kuni no Sora'

Veteran scriptwriter Haruhiko Arai spent three decades trying to adapt Yuichi Takai's 1983 novel "Kono Kuni no Sora" ("This Country's Sky") for the screen — and the wait was worth it.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 3, 2015

Director Kawase disregards criticism of her sentimental leprosy drama 'An'

When I first interviewed Naomi Kawase in 1998, after she won the Cannes Film Festival's Camera d'Or award for her first feature, "Moe no Suzaku" ("Suzaku"), I remarked on her "quietly stubborn determination" to persist in the face of various detractors. If anything, criticism has increased in the intervening...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 11, 2015

Going where Terayama's rare spirit lives on

The avant-garde stage and film director, poet, critic, author and founder of the experimental theater group Tenjo Sajiki, Shuji Terayama (1935-83), influenced theater the world over with his iconoclastic plays such as "Mink Marie," "Heretics" and "Directions to Servants."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 11, 2015

Couples beware as Kayoko Shiraishi returns in intriguing style

Actress Kayoko Shiraishi is famed for her portrayals of male and female characters of all ages almost as if she were possessed by their souls.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 10, 2015

Dull and authentic beats out polished TV

Another New Year's break, another two-week onslaught of inconsequential television programs based on the variety show model of comedians talking about themselves, watching videos of other people doing supposedly interesting things and playing games whose main entertainment function is humiliation. The...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 26, 2014

Hirai giving more input at Sony Pictures in wake of hack

Sony Corp.'s Tokyo headquarters is changing its usual arm's-length relationship with its U.S. studio following a massive cyberattack and the controversy over the comedy "The Interview," with the group CEO being consulted on key decisions, company officials said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 3, 2014

Screen icon's son brings women's rights to the stage

"Since I was a child, I always wanted to devote my life to film as my father did," Kenta Fukasaku said during a recent chat in which his late, great role model, the charismatic movie director Kinji Fukasaku, often figured.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 19, 2014

Asia enriches the Bard's work-in-progress

Whatever would William Shakespeare make of it all if he were to journey now through Asia, where the interpretations of his works differ so much across vast regions, ethnic groups, cultures and languages?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 6, 2014

Dan Stevens goes from Crawley to creepy in 'The Guest'

Dan Stevens achieved TV stardom via his role as English gentleman Matthew Crawley on the popular British period drama "Downton Abbey," and he has now set his sights on the big screen. Will it happen?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Nov 5, 2014

NHK drama's foreign star says Japan has strengthened her

Charlotte Kate Fox, lead actress in the NHK morning drama "Massan," said Wednesday that like the character she plays, she has grown stronger since coming to Japan.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone. 
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan