Dads, in Japan and elsewhere, never quite believe that their daughters are grown up and gone, do they? On a corner of their desk or in a corner of their mind is a picture of their princess at the school play or the piano ...

Director: Various Language: Japanese (subtitled in English) Criterion is releasing a Blu-ray/DVD box set of the first 25 films in the “Zatoichi” series. Starring the burly, charismatic Shintaro Katsu as the titular blind swordsman, this action-packed series, which ran from 1962 to 1989, was ...

First published in 1963, Jakucho Setouchi’s “Natsu no Owari (The End of Summer)” was the “Fifty Shades of Grey” of its day: a best-selling novel written by a woman that viewed the unconventional love life of its 38-year-old heroine with the sort of matter-of-factness ...

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Language: Japanese (subtitled in English) On Sept. 9, Third Window Films of the U.K. will release an English-subbed DVD set of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s”Kumo no Hitomi (Eyes of the Spider)” and “Hebi no Michi (Serpent’s Path),” two linked 1998 low-budget shockers both ...

Norman England is the world’s leading non-Japanese expert on all things Godzilla, if hours logged on the set are any measure. From 1999 to 2004, he spent, by his own estimate, 150 days at Toho Studios watching the king of kaiju (monsters) come to ...

Veteran scriptwriter and director Toshiyuki Morioka had more than a professional interest in making his new film “Jokyo Monogatari.” Based on an autobiographical manga by Rieko Saibara, its story of an aspiring artist coming to Tokyo to learn her trade and make her fortune ...

So many Japanese have relocated to Tokyo over the years to make their fortunes — or simply to escape rural poverty — that there is a word to describe the act: jōkyō (which the dictionary defines as “proceeding to the capital [Tokyo]“). Something similar ...

Director: Various Language: Japanese (subtitled in English) Amazon Spain is selling Spanish/English-subbed DVDs of old Toho war movies, including 1963′s “Taiheiyo no Tsubasa (Attack Squadron!),” with Toshiro Mifune starring as a fighter squadron leader, and 1968′s “Rengo Kantai Shirei Chokan: Yamamoto Isoroku (Admiral Yamamoto),” ...

I once had a promising career as a teacher at a city day-care center in Hollywood (yes, that Hollywood). For one thing, I enjoyed interacting (translation: playing) with my charges, mostly African-American kids aged 9 to 12. For another, I liked making stuff with ...

Japanese love mysteries, in print and on the screen, but foreigners, by and large, don’t take to Japanese mystery movies. For decades, Japanese producers were happy to concentrate on the big domestic market for local whodunit films, while making only half-hearted attempts to sell ...

Director: Hayao Miyazaki Language: Japanese (English subs/dub) Hayao Miyazaki’s 1992 anime “Kurenai no Buta (Porco Rosso)” is now available in Japan as a multi-language-subbed/dubbed Blu-ray. This action-fantasy about a porcine World War I pilot who battles air pirates while vying with a rival for ...