Most serious documentaries made in Japan, especially for television, follow a basic just-the-facts format. A presenter or narrator and various talking heads explain and interpret what we are seeing, from beauty shots of tourist spots to footage grabbed on the run in a war ...

The once-thriving Japanese indie scene is in trouble , nearly everyone who has anything to do with it agrees: Its core young audience has been seduced by the dubious delights of the multiplex, while the “mini theaters” (art houses) and small distributors that could ...

When I saw Yoji Yamada’s “Tasogare Seibei (The Twilight Samurai),” a lyrical, low-key 2002 drama about a low-ranking, family-loving samurai forced to kill for his clan, it struck me as a throwback to the genre’s 1950s Golden Age. But this, I later discovered, was ...

Shinji Aoyama might be described as a Japanese arthouse version of Quentin Tarantino: A smart, dedicated cinephile who works his influences into his films while experimenting with various genres, from the gangster film (“Chinpira,” 1996) to mystery (“Lakeside Murder Case,” 2004). But whereas Tarantino’s ...

Japanese directors with any kind of ambition usually end up making a family drama, which is to Japanese cinema what the Western used to be to Hollywood: the core national genre. Of course, plenty of bad-to-mediocre directors here have made family dramas, just as ...

of manzai comedy duo Downtown, Hitoshi Matsumoto has sat atop the slippery pole of popularity on Japanese television for nearly two decades. He has also directed two films, 2007′s “Dai-Nipponjin (Big Man Japan)” and 2009′s “Shinboru (Symbol),” that have screened widely abroad, while occasioning ...

Hirokazu Koreeda has risen to heights of international critical esteem that few of his generation can equal. An American film journal recently devoted nearly an entire issue to his films (with this reviewer contributing). But what foreign critics and fans often think they are ...

The Japanese student-protest movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s had much in common with its American counterpart, from its massive street demonstrations to its taste in music (The Beatles and Bob Dylan) and movies (anything with Dustin Hoffman or Jack Nicholson). But ...

Japan’s indie film sector, never terribly robust financially, is now fighting for its life. Technically, of course, it has never been easier to make indie films. The problem is the lack of theaters willing to screen them and fans willing to see them. Even ...

What is marriage, anyway? Whatever it is for you personally, it traditionally starts with that brief delirium of carefree joy and erotic delight called a honeymoon. But these days, with more couples marrying after years of living together, honeymoons are becoming just another excuse ...

Foreign tourists to Kyoto often end up in a bubble of tour buses and traditional culture shows (five minutes of bunraku, five minutes of flower arranging, etc.), while those looking to break out and entertain themselves like the locals can run into language barriers. ...

When Koji Fukada’s “Kantai (Hospitalite)” won the Best Picture Award in the Japanese Eyes section of last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, I wasn’t surprised: It’s brand of black comedy is funny in smart, original ways. Many reviewers have since compared it favorably with ...