Tag - mayu-matsuoka

 
 

MAYU MATSUOKA

A fledgling film director (Mayu Matsuoka, center) returns home to make a film about her dysfunctional family in “Masked Hearts.”
CULTURE / Film
Oct 26, 2023
‘Masked Hearts’: Catharsis comes out of familial discord
Yuya Ishii returns to his indie roots with a comedy-drama that comes from a personal and painfully real place.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 16, 2020
‘Theatre: A Love Story’: No sparks in this tortured romance
Based on a novel by comedian-turned-author Naoki Matayoshi, “Theatre: A Love Story” centers on a narcissistic playwright and his long-suffering girlfriend.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 7, 2019
'One Night': A family drama both deep and dark
Kazuya Shiraishi's latest tells the story of three siblings whose mother kills their abusive father and then abandons them for 15 years, before returning to check on their progress in life
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 27, 2019
'Marriage Hunting Beauty': When dating dilemmas fail to excite
Last year veteran director Akiko Ohku had a breakthrough hit with "Tremble All You Want," a romantic com edy about a 24-year-old office clerk still obsessed with her girlhood crush but yet to have an actual boyfriend. Played with discombobulated verve by Mayu Matsuoka, this loser-at-love won audience hearts, while making Matsuoka the local industry's "it girl."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 18, 2018
The meteoric rise of Mayu Matsuoka
As a film critic, I occasionally come across something on the screen that sets off fireworks in my brain. It happened with Sakura Ando's explosive performance as a desperate boxer in "100 Yen Love" and with the funny, surprising and moving zombie comedy "One Cut of the Dead." And last year it also happened with Mayu Matsuoka
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 31, 2018
'Blank 13': Dark dysfunctional-family drama offers no easy answers
A father steps back into his family's lives, after a gap of 13 years, to tell them he is dying of cancer.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 3, 2018
'Tremble All You Want': Mayu Matsuoka gives a star-making turn in delightful romcom
Hopeless crushes are typically the stuff of teen comedies, not romcoms aimed at grownups. Yet in the corner of many an adult brain exists at least one excruciating memory of that special teenaged someone you never quite worked up the nerve to speak to.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 10, 2016
'Aiba Learns'; 'Good Fortune! Appraisal Team for Anything High Quality Treasure Salon'; Lotte — So
In addition to singing and dancing, the popular male idols managed by Johnny & Associates do a lot of educational TV, including "Aiba Manabu" ("Aiba Learns"; TV Asahi, Sun., 6 p.m.), in which Masaki Aiba, a member of boy band Arashi, learns about some common process. In the past, Aiba and his guests have had hands-on lessons about how to plant rice and how to catch tuna.

Longform

Later this month, author Shogo Imamura will open Honmaru, a bookstore that allows other businesses to rent its shelves. It's part of a wave of ideas Japanese booksellers are trying to compete with online spaces.
The story isn't over for Japan's bookstores