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September 07, 2024
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 22, 2004
And in the tattered black tights, Papa
Backdrop Papa Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Toshio Lee Running time: 98 minutes Language: Japanese Opens Oct. 8 [See Japan Times movie listings] Boys want their fathers to be heroes. Men want to be heroes to their sons. These truisms sound old-fashioned in today's unheroic Tokyo,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 15, 2004
You can't beat an old master
Coffee Jiko Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Hou Hsiao- hsien Running time: 103 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Yasujiro Ozu's trademark style -- the low camera angles, the straight cuts, the actors talking at the camera in medium closeup...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 8, 2004
Director follows kabuki offstage to find the essence of onnagata
Musume Dojoji Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Yukiko Takayama Running time: 110 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Kabuki plays were an important source of material for early Japanese filmmakers, conferring prestige and popularity on their...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 1, 2004
Flickers in the dead of night
Kaidan Shinmimibukuro Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: See review Running time: 92 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] The older I get, the harder I am to scare -- with horror movies at least. After a certain age, real life, including medical...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 25, 2004
No easy answers from Kore-eda
Directors who have been on the PR circuit long enough often have their answers ready before the interviewer's questions are halfway out of his mouth. Not Hirokazu Kore-eda. Despite the dozens of interviews he's given since "Nobody Knows (Daremo Shiranai)" screened in competition at this year's Cannes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 25, 2004
While Mom was away
Nobody Knows Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda Running time: 141 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings]
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 18, 2004
Violence and swordplay in wild, wild Edo
Izo Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Takashi Miike Running time: 128 minutes Language: Japanese Opens on Aug. 21 [See Japan Times movie listings] Swords are coming out all over. That's the impression I get watching recent swashbucklers from not only genre veterans like Kihachi Okamoto,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 11, 2004
This charming man hits wrong note
Kikansha Sensei Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Ryuichi Hiroki Running time: 123 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] When I taught at a boys high school in the early 1980s, I would, without fail, catch a bad chest cold in the winter and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 4, 2004
Life after the bomb
The Face of Jizo Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Kazuo Kuroki Running time: 99 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 were Japan's single greatest catastrophe of World War II. They...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 28, 2004
Something for your head
Animators have always had a thing for Surrealism, going back to Disney's "Silly Symphonies" in 1934 and beyond. (Disney, in fact, collaborated with the most notorious Surrealist of all, Salvador Dali, on 1946's fabled "Destino" project.) Japanese animators, however, are the arch Surrealists of the movie...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 28, 2004
Director has whale of a time making experimental 'Mind Game'
Now an animation veteran, with 17 years in the business, Masaaki Yuasa still looks young enough, acts deferential enough and dresses down enough to be mistaken for a rank-and-filer. Instead, he is a rising industry star hailed for his work on the "Crayon Shinchan" franchise, the nearest Japanese animation...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 21, 2004
It's a wonderful (and weird) life
Cha no Aji Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Katsuhito Ishii Running time: 143 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Brimming with whacky invention and seemingly inspired by the stranger manga, Katsuhito Ishii's "Samahada Otoko to Momojiri...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 14, 2004
Remembering the good old future
Steamboy Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Katsuhiro Otomo Running time: 126 minutes Language: English Opens July 17 [See Japan Times movie listings] I am old enough to remember when the future looked fun. As a kid I was an eager reader of Jules Verne, whose futuristic novels, written...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 14, 2004
The master behind the otaku
Some directors joke their way through press conferences (Takeshi Kitano), while others seem to revel in the attention (the late Akira Kurosawa), but few looked as ill at ease as Katsuhiro Otomo, appearing before the media at Roppongi Hills in early June to promote "Steamboy." Nervously blinking as though...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 7, 2004
Our man on the street
Disclosure: I've been following Harvey Pekar's work for 24 years, ever since a mutual friend and former editor of the Cleveland Edition, a long-defunct alternative paper, sent me his fifth American Splendor comic to review in 1980. I compared Pekar's autobiographical stories of ordinary life in the city...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 7, 2004
A classic -- by the numbers
Tange Sazen: Hyakuman Ryo no Tsubo Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Toshio Tsuda Running time: 119 minutes Language: Japanese Opens July 17 [See Japan Times movie listings] Tange Sazen -- the one-eyed, one-armed ex-samurai swordsman -- is one of those literary characters with a mythic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 30, 2004
Ryu Murakami's number is up
69 Rating: * * * (out of 5) Director: Lee Sang ll Running time: 113 minutes Language: Japanese Opens July 10 [See Japan Times movie listings] How was your 1969? A student at the University of Michigan at the time, I grew my hair into a Bob Dylan halo, blew my mind with LSD and got tear-gassed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 23, 2004
Naughty and nice, sugar and spice
Shimotsuma Monogatari Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Tetsuya Nakashima Running time: 103 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Youth fashion in Japan used to march in lockstep from trend to trend, led by magazines with names like pandas...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 16, 2004
A sea monkey and a gentleman
Umizaru Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Eiichiro Hazumi Running time: 120 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Japanese studios used to grind out contemporary action movies by the dozen, with one company, Nikkatsu, specializing in them from...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 9, 2004
Honey, honey, ah, sugar, sugar
Cutie Honey Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Hideaki Anno Running time: 93 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Doesn't everybody need a break once in a while? The answer is evidently yes for Hideaki Anno, best known abroad for his meditative...
Shinjiro Koizumi promises immediate snap election if elected LDP president
Former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi declares his candidacy in the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
Seven & I pans value of offer as it rejects Canadian takeover bid
Seven & I Holdings, operator of the 7-Eleven convenience store chain, said on Friday it has rejected Alimentation Couche-Tard's takeover bid as not being in the interest of shareholders.
Japan's Prince Hisahito turns 18
Prince Hisahito observes in July narrow leaf cattail that he had planted at the Akasaka Estate in Tokyo's Minato Ward.
Japan miffed but reaction muted after shocking twist to U.S. Steel deal
Nippon Steel's proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel is opposed by politicians across the political spectrum, including both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Japan’s second city can finally make Tokyo jealous
Osaka is set to open Grand Green Osaka in the city’s Umekita area. It is a sprawling redevelopment that combines a park with mixed-use skyscrapers and is part of a push to rejuvenate the merchant city.
No talking, no eating, no standing: Inside sumo's ring purification ceremony
A sumo referee performs the dohyō matsuri, or ring purification ceremony, in January 2017 at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo.
Demand for Calrose rice rises amid Japanese rice shortage
Shuzo Fukushi, who heads Rice Meister Kojimachi in Tokyo, shows a bag of Calrose mixed with domestic rice at his store on Thursday.
Pasocom Music Club returns to the pure pleasures of the dance floor
Pasocom Music Club’s “Love Flutter” marks an important moment for Japan’s electronic community as project members Aoi Shibata (left) and Masato Nishiyama step into a role other artists once held for them — scene veterans who are inspiring the next generation.
Typhoon-chaser's firsthand account of his pursuit of Shanshan
A washed-up boat on the shore of the city of Ibusuki, Kagoshima Prefecture, on Friday
First lesson of Japan’s akiya gold rush: No such thing as a free house.
An abandoned house in Urayama, Saitama Prefecture. Buying an <i>akiya</i>, which means empty house in Japanese, can be a rewarding experience that yields a unique space and a livable home, competitively priced. Or it could turn out to be a money pit.

Podcast

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

Longform

A store clerk tries to cool things down in front of their shop by spraying a hose.
Is extreme weather changing the way Japan shops?
By Alex K.T. Martin

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