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November 04, 2025
 

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Kaori Shoji
Kaori Shoji writes about movies and movie-makers for the Film Page, plus takes a turn at the Bilingual Column. Biggest mistake of her career: taking the very dignified Nagisa Oshima to McDonald's for an iced coffee.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 23, 2009
Arta Dobroshi: A role model
Like her character, Lorna, in "Le Silence de Lorna," 29-year-old Arta Dobroshi was born in a less prosperous, unstable region of Europe (in her case Kosovo), but unlike Lorna, she has studied in the United States, traveled extensively, and has been studying the performing arts since elementary school....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 16, 2009
'Revolutionary Road'
There's something about American suburbia that American cinema loves to hate, or at least give a dig in the ribs. The camera will pan in on the clean, airy spaciousness and obvious signs of prosperity, but the next minute, terrible things are always happening in the burbs: man-eating houses ("Amityville...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 14, 2009
'Change' is for the better in year's kanji highlights
The most popular kanji in headlines, blurbs and slogans last year had to do with disasters. Hen (変, to change, or metamorphose) was the most used character, according to the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, beating out close second and third choices kin (金 gold) and raku (落, to drop, or...
CULTURE / Film
Jan 9, 2009
'Lads and Jockeys'
Life as a 14-year-old jockey apprentice at France's sole equestrian academy, Le Moulin N'Avon, starts off resembling a romantic period piece in "Lads and Jockeys," set as it is to the strains of jazz and lit like a moody Parisian bar. But as the camera zooms in on slender, barely pubescent boys lugging...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 26, 2008
'The Day the Earth Stood Still'
The Earth continues to turn as the characters in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," a tailored-for- blockbuster remake of the 1951 classic of the same name, remain eerily immobile
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 26, 2008
The top movies of 2008
In carefully ordered rankings for Japanese films and no particular order for the rest, we bring you the best films of a year that is steadily drawing its curtains closed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 26, 2008
Top movies of 2008
In carefully ordered rankings for Japanese films and no particular order for the rest, we bring you the best films of a year that is steadily drawing its curtains closed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 19, 2008
'Lars and the Real Girl'
If 27-year-old Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling) in "Lars and the Real Girl" had lived in another community, perhaps life would have been easier for him. As it is, the citizens of a friendly little town located in the American Midwest look upon Lars with protective tenderness.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 12, 2008
'Alatriste'
Touted as the most expensive Spanish production ever made, the $28 million swashbuckler "Alatriste" refrains from flaunting its price tag.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 9, 2008
At the heart of Japan rests the ‘reverent middle'
Elsewhere in the world, the heart lies pretty much in its correct anatomical place. But in Japan, it has traditionally been located mid-torso, or more precisely in the hara(腹, belly). For the Japanese, the belly has always been the vessel of emotions. It's where rage festers, love burns or fades away;...
CULTURE / Film
Dec 5, 2008
Jiri's on track again
Forty years after he won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture with "Closely Watched Trains," Czech filmmaker Jiri Menzel proves that his trademark deadpan humor and mischievous, satirical wit are still intact with "I Served the King of England."
CULTURE / Film
Dec 5, 2008
'I Served the King of England'
Watching Czech waiter Jan Dite in "I Served the King of England" traipse through some of the most tragic years his country had ever known (Nazi intervention, Soviet invasion), you're reminded of another Czech cinema antihero: Tomas (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being."...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 28, 2008
'Broken English'
Zoe Cassavetes' first feature film, "Broken English," hovers expertly between the realm of total credibility and urban fairy-tale for chicks, the kind of story you're likely to hear from a girlfriend over lunch about someone in her office who hasn't had a date in two whole years and wham! She met THE...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2008
'Exiled '
In a Hong Kong diner several months before the peninsula was to be handed back to mainland China in 1997, I witnessed a scene between a portly local businessman and a suited gaijin. They were discussing a deal over a plastic table groaning with food — the gaijin had no appetite, but the Hong Kong businessman...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 14, 2008
'Blindess'
When chaos hits, no one is morally or philosophically unscathed. Such is the moral of "Blindness," based on Portuguese author Jose Saramago's 1995 best seller and adapted to the screen by Brazil's Fernando Meirelles ("City of God").
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 11, 2008
To go naked in autumn, you've gotta have yu
As soon as the weather starts to get chilly in this country, it seems that peoples' minds turn to two things: yu (湯, hot water) and nabe (鍋, hot pot). Anyone staying in Japan longer than a year will have noticed it — as a nation, Japanese are hopelessly samugari (寒がり, prone to being cold)....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 7, 2008
'Leatherheads'
George Clooney's well-groomed, pedigreed charm hits the screen full-force in "Leatherheads" — the impact of which leaves you slightly reeling. How can one, sole guy be so enchanting?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 6, 2008
War as wisdom and gore
A prominent example of how modern technology altered the world is seen in the way men wage war. In John Woo's battle extravaganza "Red Cliff," set in China in 208, armies fight with spears and shields and bare hands; they traverse deserts and treacherous mountain paths on foot and subsist on little more...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 31, 2008
'Boy A'
When a 10-year-old commits a horrendous crime, whose fault is it? "Boy A" addresses the question but offers no easy answer in this painful portrayal of the repercussions of a childhood gone terribly awry.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2008
'Deception'
There's a certain anachronistic value system at work in "Deception" that's both quaint and slightly annoying. So many things about this film seem so outlandishly yesterday as to prompt the sotto voce notion, "Are you guys for real?"
The unstoppable rise of konbini tourism
Guests typically follow Ryo Ito’s lead as he weaves through the narrow, colorful aisles of convenience stores.
More Japanese universities pushing toward teaching in English
Waseda University in Tokyo
A narrow Pacific waterway at heart of U.S. plans to choke China’s vast navy
Philippine and Australian troops fire an M777 howitzer during live fire exercises as part of joint military drills in Laur, Nueva Ecija, the Philippines, in August.
Trump would make U.S. Supreme Court history by attending tariffs case
There is no record in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 235-year history of a sitting president ever attending arguments, according to Clare Cushman, director of publications and resident historian at the Supreme Court Historical Society.
Dodgers clinch back-to-back World Series titles as Blue Jays downed in thriller
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto and teammates celebrate after winning the World Series against the Blue Jays. Yamamoto was named MVP for the series.
How airlines are refining their in-flight food in Japan's tourism boom
All Nippon Airways' gourmet program, The Connoisseurs, showcases the Japanese concept of "shun" (peak season for ingredients), giving passengers a preview of the refined cuisine that awaits them in Japan.
The unstoppable rise of konbini tourism
Guests typically follow Ryo Ito’s lead as he weaves through the narrow, colorful aisles of convenience stores.
Anime isn’t competing with Hollywood — it’s beating it
After its July release, “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — Infinity Castle,” an animated feature adapted directly from a TV arc, became the highest-grossing Japanese film ever.
Oasis returns to Japan after 16 years — and fans can still sing every word
Liam Gallagher commanded the stage with effortless charisma during Oasis' Tokyo Dome set on Saturday.
At Japan Mobility Show, BYD gears up to conquer Japan's EV market
BYD Auto Japan President Atsuki Tofukuji unveils the Racco at the Japan Mobility Show in Tokyo on Wednesday.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes
By Alex K.T. Martin

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