Tag - sion-sono

 
 

SION SONO

Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 6, 2022
Japan film director Sion Sono accused of sexual harassment
Film director Sion Sono, known in the international festival circuits and for his recent debut in Hollywood, has been accused of sexual harassment and assault.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 30, 2021
‘Red Post on Escher Street’: Sion Sono lets loose in his ode to cinema
Shot in eight days with students from his acting workshop, Sion Sono's madcap drama features standout performances by up-and-coming actors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 15, 2021
Sion Sono brings his brand of dystopia to Hollywood in ‘Prisoners of the Ghostland’
A director known for flouting convention, Sion Sono makes his Hollywood debut with “Prisoners of the Ghostland,” starring Nicolas Cage.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 2, 2019
'The Forest of Love': Netflix feature lets Sono be Sono
Sion Sono's return to filmmaking sees him blend all of his hallmarks into one gore-drenched epic
CULTURE / Film
Apr 11, 2018
'The Bastard and the Beautiful World': Former SMAP stars let loose in a quartet of twisted tales
The members of SMAP, the five-man mega-group that disbanded in December 2016, had their share of hit films, though their central field of operation was always television. Now three of them — Goro Inagaki, Shingo Katori and Tsuyoshi Kusanagi — star in a four-part omnibus film with a limited release, a project unthinkable when Johnny & Associates, the talent agency that made SMAP the biggest boy band in Japanese pop music history, was managing their careers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 20, 2017
A courtroom drama, an alien takeover and the lives of sex workers all feature in the best Japanese films of 2017
This year was bad for Japanese films box office-wise, but not quality-wise. Here are my best 10:
Japan Times
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Jun 14, 2017
Sion Sono serves up some blood-sucking fun in 'Tokyo Vampire Hotel'
Vampires have been a staple of Western pop culture since Bram Stoker published his best-selling novel "Dracula" in 1897. The hit "Twilight" series of films (2008-12) made the monsters hot again as millions of teens swooned to the romance of Bella (Kristen Stewart) and ageless vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 19, 2017
Sion Sono swan dives into Shinjuku's chaos
Celebrated abroad for films that mash up everything from extreme sex and gore to Christian imagery and classical music, Sion Sono has emerged as one of the most distinctive directors in Japanese cinema this century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 12, 2016
'Sion Sono: The Whispering Star'
April 3-July 10
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 7, 2015
Asia's most important film festival reasserts its independence
Celebrating its 20th year, the 2015 edition of the Busan International Film Festival, held in South Korea's southern port city from Oct. 1 to 10, has a lot to brag about, as it has definitely become the most important film festival in Asia in terms of the quality of its programming, the size and reach of its market activities and the variety of its educational events.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 8, 2015
Mass murder and Sion Sono
A disturbed individual kills, and the media searches for reasons why. Sometimes, the killer obligingly cites a pop culture phenomenon as inspiration. Mark David Chapman, the man who shot John Lennon, saw himself as the living embodiment of Holden Caulfield, the hero of J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye," who loudly declares his hatred of "phonies." Chapman, who considered the former Beatle a prime phony, took that hatred up one psychotic notch on Dec. 8, 1980, when he fatally shot Lennon at the entrance to his New York apartment building. Chapman perused Salinger's novel while waiting for the police.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 1, 2015
Sion Sono is back with buckets of blood and a three-faced heroine in 'Tag'
Sion Sono is a director of extremes — including an extreme dislike of being categorized. Just when you thought you had him pegged as a maker of violent black comedies with classical music scores, such as "Ai no Mukidashi"("Love Exposure"), he turns out heartfelt, albeit still violent, dramas with nuclear disaster themes, such as "Himizu" and "Kibo no Kuni" ("The Land of Hope").
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 4, 2015
In the cinematic wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster
In January 2013 Eiga Geijutsu magazine released its annual "Best 10 and Worst 10" lists. The two worst films of 2012, as chosen by the magazine's panel of critics, were Sion Sono's "Himizu" and "Kibo no Kuni (Land of Hope)." The former is about a teenage boy (Shota Sometani) driven to violence by his abusive father, but Sono rewrote the script — which was based on a manga by Minoru Furuya — to reflect the human cost of the Great East Japan Earthquake and resulting disasters of March 11, 2011. One addition in the rewrite was an elderly disaster victim (Tetsu Watanabe) who has lost everything but still tries to help the troubled young hero.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 3, 2014
A quarter century of Japanese films in review
In 25 years of reviewing Japanese films and interviewing Japanese filmmakers for this newspaper, I've written 1 million words, give or take a few. This is clearly something no normal person would do, but for me it beats working.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 27, 2014
Bloody hip-hop war set in technicolored Tokyo
A Japanese hip-hop musical? How about a samurai swashbuckler set on the streets of Compton, California? But Sion Sono makes his new film, "Tokyo Tribe," more than an oddity of cultural appropriation. Truth be told, I felt queasy as the story, based on a manga by Santa Inoue, began to unfold in a crime-ridden near-future Tokyo, with the "tribes" (gangs) of the title ruling the streets as the cops complicitly look on. Was this, I wondered, Sono's twisted idea of a rap paradise? Was he grossly stereotyping or was he not?

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