Tag - japanese-film

 
 

JAPANESE FILM

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 8, 2013
'Arekara (Since Then)'
It's rare indeed that I ever wished a new Japanese film were longer — and I am not the only one. "This could be shorter by (name your number) minutes" is such a cliche of Japanese film reviewing and commentary that I inwardly groan every time I read or hear it; and yet more often than not, it's right....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 1, 2013
Fifth Okinawa fest celebrates community films
Since its start in 2009, the Okinawa International Movie Festival has been more than its name implies. It has the usual competition sections: one called Laugh for comedies and another called Peace for dramas, though not all the films fit neatly into these two bins. But it has also been a promo event...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 1, 2013
'Su-chan Mai-chan Sawako-san'
...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2013
Recommended reading
Donald Richie was a scrupulous writer who paid finite attention to language and content. The following are 10 outstanding choices — titles that should be on any discerning readers' bookshelf.
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 24, 2013
An inclined view: The life and work of Donald Richie
It was with a heavy heart that I heard from Donald Richie's longtime friend and editor Leza Lowitz that he had passed away on the morning of Tuesday, this week. He was 88.
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 24, 2013
Sharing films with a master critic
Donald Richie was my friend and mentor for more than 20 years and my inspiration before that. When I was preparing to come to Japan for the first time in 1975, I read many books about the place, but Donald's masterpiece "The Inland Sea" was the one that entranced me. My first long trip after my arrival...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2013
'Yokomichi Yonosuke'
Plenty of Japanese directors make films about socially awkward or marginal guys: Given all the on-screen examples (as well as their many real-life inspirations), it seems that the onetime country of the samurai has become the land of the otaku and freeter (unemployed or underemployed), clasping to emotional...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 15, 2013
'Sado Tenpesuto'
Beginning with 2001's "Ichiban Utsukushi Natsu (Firefly Dreams)," a Yasujiro Ozu-esque drama about a friendship that develops between a rebellious teenage girl and an elderly former actress in the countryside, John Williams has been directing films in Japan with Japanese talent that do not proclaim...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 15, 2013
'My film remixes "The Tempest" '
A Welshman who moved to Nagoya in 1988 and has been based in Japan ever since, John Williams is the rare foreigner who has worked in the Japanese film industry in not only the usual facilitator roles, as line producer and translator, but has also directed his own well-regarded films here. His first...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 8, 2013
'Kiiroi Zo'
Ryuichi Hiroki has become the go-to director for romantic dramas that quality-wise are a cut above the local formula weepers whose starred-crossed lovers are parted by a slow, beautiful death (though Hiroki's couples are hardly immune to life's vicissitudes). At the same time, his films in this genre...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2013
'R-18 Bungakusho Vol. 1: Jijojibaku no Watashi'
Sex is universal, but kinks can be local. Japanese S&M, at least the varieties I've seen in films over the years, is less about black leather and fishnet stockings, more about candle wax and artfully elaborate knots designed to display the flesh of the (inevitably female) subject in enticing ways.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 22, 2004
Sexual, textual and visual boundaries
IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES (BFI Film Classics), by Joan Mellen. London: British Film Institute, 2004, 88 pp., with photographs. £8.99 (paper).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 17, 2002
Donald Richie rewinds a century of film
Donald Richie has always struck me as the ideal role model for the aspiring writer. More the distiller than the brewer, the cordon-bleu chef than the bone-cook, there is much to be learned from Richie's refinements.

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’