Tag - fumi-nikaido

 
 

FUMI NIKAIDO

The Saitama leader of a rebellion (Gackt, center) decides to unite the citizens of his home prefecture by creating a sea and beach for the area in “Fly Me to the Saitama II.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 16, 2023
‘Fly Me to the Saitama II’: Silliness abounds but the laughs do not
Hideki Takeuchi’s sequel to his award-winning hit comedy treads familiar and ridiculous ground, but it’s just not as funny as the first film.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 25, 2020
‘Tezuka’s Barbara’: A dazzlingly dull descent into madness
Macoto Tezkau2019s adaptation of his fatheru2019s racy 1970s manga is visually intoxicating, but liable to leave viewers with a hangover.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 7, 2019
'Little Miss Period': That time of the month, brought to life
Menstruation rarely plays a central role in feature films, which makes Shunsuke Shinada's latest feature, which involves a giant period mascot harassing women, something of an anomaly.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2019
'Fly Me to the Saitama': Tokyo takes on its revolting neighbors
Places considered cool and uncool sometimes exist in uneasy proximity, like New York City and New Jersey — or Tokyo and Saitama. The prefecture adjacent to the Japanese capital has the image of being a land of boring commuter towns with no cultural attractions beyond shopping malls and family restaurants.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 21, 2016
A new wave of Japanese filmmakers matches the old
Nearly two decades after the Japanese New Wave of the 1990s, the directors who led it, including Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Hirokazu Koreeda and Naomi Kawase, are still the local industry's most prominent faces abroad. But this year a new generation of filmmakers has finally started to make itself heard, with 36-year-old Koji Fukada winning the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes for "Harmonium" ("Fuchi ni Tatsu") and 43-year-old Makoto Shinkai obliterating the box-office competition with his animation "Kimi no Na wa." ("Your Name."). Both generations found themselves on my best 10 list for 2016.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 21, 2016
'Scoop!': Read all about it here
Japanese weekly scandal magazines are pond scum, are they not? Dishing up grainy paparazzi photos of the famous and powerful, accompanied by wink-wink stories about improprieties and crimes — alleged or exposed — they appeal to the lowest common denominator, with their only raison d'etre being sales figures. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they all vanished from the face of the Earth?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 22, 2016
'Kako: My Sullen Past': Mikiko, the prodigal bomb maker
Would anyone in Hollywood now green-light a film with a quirky middle-aged heroine whose passion is making and detonating bombs? Especially one with no apologies for her explosive past, human collateral included? I can imagine the tremors at the pitch meeting when someone says the dreaded word "terrorist."
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 18, 2016
'Wolf Girl and Black Prince': The dogged persistence of teen love
Girls go for bad, abusive guys, while relegating nice, decent ones to the dreaded "friend zone": A misogynistic lie or the cold, hard truth? Ryuichi Hiroki's "Wolf Girl and Black Prince" seems to say the latter, starting with its premise. A naive, socially inept high school girl agrees to become the "dog" of a handsome, arrogant schoolmate if he pretends to be her boyfriend. That is, she has to do exactly as he says, doggy tricks included, and in return he will hang out with her in front of her friends — the school's "cool girl" clique. How retrograde is that?
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 8, 2015
How do you cure an allergy to money?
When is a "multitalented" person too "multi"? Where is the line between extending your creative energies in new directions and spreading yourself thin?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 11, 2015
Misono Universe: Screaming from the gutter to the stars
Amnesia is one of those medical conditions that might have been invented for the movies. For scriptwriters, it's a godsend — one bump on the hero's head and the story is rolling.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 23, 2014
Actress Nikaido sets her own agenda
Many young Japanese film actors start as models or pop stars and then, as they accumulate magazine covers or CD sales, move into TV and films. Many also play versions of themselves again and again on screen, which may suit their fans just fine, but makes for repetitive viewing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 9, 2014
Fukada's young castaways on adulthood's shores
Born in Tokyo in 1980, Koji Fukada released his first film in 2004, but his breakthrough was 2010's "Kantai (Hospitalité)," a witty black comedy about a mysterious stranger who talks his way into a job at a small Tokyo printing shop and is soon insinuating himself into the lives of the shop's proprietor and his family. Premiering in the Tokyo International Film Festival's Japanese Eyes section, "Hospitalité" won the best film prize and was widely screened abroad, while its French title and story called up comparisons with the 1932 Jean Renoir comedy classic "Boudu Saved from Drowning."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 10, 2013
TIFF is your chance to catch up with Japanese film
The Tokyo International Film Festival, now in its 26th edition, has had its share of detractors, dissing it for everything from competition lineups of major festival castoffs (no longer true since TIFF stopped insisting on world premieres) to a Special Screening section that is essentially a PR showcase for upcoming commercial releases (still and forever the case). And yet foreign critics, bloggers and fans keep turning up at TIFF for at least one reason: The festival offers a rare chance to see large numbers of new and not so new Japanese films with English subtitles, in better-than-average screening conditions.

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A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world