Tag - ken-yasuda

 
 

KEN YASUDA

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 16, 2021
‘Struggling Man’: Average Joe doesn’t quite move the needle
Toshio Lee's comedy about a company man who genuinely cares about those around him while harboring insecurities about his work and home life mostly deals in broad humor and cliches.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2018
'Come On Irene': You can't buy love ... or a decent protagonist
In the late 1980s, Japanese media ran a flurry of reports on an alarming shortage of brides in the country's rural areas. Unable to find potential partners at home, bachelors in farming villages were searching for wives in mainland Asia — sometimes with support from their local governments, and often with significant sums changing hands.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 27, 2016
Satoko Yokohama: The girl from Aomori taking on Japan's film industry
The Japanese film industry is one of the most antiquated in the world. Well, that seems to be the general opinion among media pundits here. Those working in film are slaves, enduring terrifically long working hours; budgets are minuscule; old-fashioned apprenticeships still reign; and women rarely get to go behind the megaphone.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 27, 2016
'The Actor' gets inside the mind of a struggling Japanese actor
How do Japanese actors do it? I don't mean the stars of mainstream films — those "multi-talents" that are busy 24/7 with TV, stage and advertising gigs — I'm talking about the legions of supporting actors who may have only a single scene or line in a film, or play a body floating in a river. How do they pay their rent and also keep plugging away despite their slim-to-zero chances of landing a big role?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 29, 2015
Takeshi Kitano's gang of nursing-home yakuza
Takeshi Kitano has had some of his biggest critical and commercial successes with gangster films, beginning with his 1993 international breakthrough "Sonatine" and continuing through to his 2012 hit "Outrage Beyond" ("Beyond Outrage"), which screened in competition at the 2012 Venice Film Festival.

Longform

Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.
For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on