Now that our shelves contain a lot more than books -- CD-ROMs, VHS tapes, DVDs -- it is worth reconsidering a question that occasionally interests the resident foreigner: How do you find Japanese films with English subtitles?
Heretofore, you didn't. Few titled film copies existed locally, so you had to order them on video from England or the United States. Now, with DVD, all of this has changed. These days, Japanese-produced English-titled Japanese films (all in DVD versions) are available at your local Japanese video/record store.
Not all Japanese films, however, are titled -- even those the interested foreign viewer would especially want. Though the complete films of Kon Ichikawa and Yasuzo Masumura are available on DVD, not one of them has English titles. It is the recent product that turns up with titles; that, and the topical and trendy. Some of Takeshi Kitano ("Hanabi," "Kikujiro"), for example, and lots of Shunji Iwai ("Undo," "Love Letter") and Shinji Aoyama ("Helpless" and, coming up, "Eureka").