Mark Schilling - The Japan Times

October 17, 2025

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Mark Schilling

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 28, 2019

Haruhiko Arai: Still pushing boundaries after 40 years in film

In a four-decade career, Haruhiko Arai has become an acclaimed scriptwriter with credits that include "Vibrator" (2003), "It's Only Talk" (2005) and "Kabukicho Love Hotel" (2014), three of the best films by his frequent collaborator, the director Ryuichi Hiroki.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 28, 2019

'Mugen Foundation': When adolescence becomes too much

The seishun eiga (youth film) is not exclusive to Japan — plenty of films from elsewhere deal with the joys and agonies of adolescence — but this popular genre has acquired certain only-in-Japan quirks.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 22, 2019

'Dance With Me': A homegrown Japanese musical has landed

Genres never really die, but they often mutate into something different on foreign soil. John Ford's cowboys became Akira Kurosawa's samurai, and Kurosawa's samurai became Sergio Leone's serape-clad, cigarillo-chewing "The Man With No Name." And the list goes on.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 21, 2019

'Dance With Me': Short on laughs, but big on energy

The Japanese film industry has made many musical films, but almost no Hollywood-style musicals. One reason why is Eizo Sugawa's "You Can Succeed, Too" (1964), a singing, dancing salaryman musical inspired by the Broadway hit "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Billed by the Toho studio...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Aug 15, 2019

How to sell your film abroad

As a reviewer, reporter and programmer, I go to six or seven film festivals a year. This is nothing compared to some colleagues, who trudge the festival circuit in a never-ending loop, but it's enough to give me a heap of festival badges.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 14, 2019

'Aesop's Game': Ueda follow-up is neither tortoise nor hare

Last year, Shinichiro Ueda made Japanese film history with "One Cut of the Dead," a zombie comedy he scripted and directed. Opening in just two Tokyo theaters in June, 2018, the film ended up earning ¥3.21 billion — or more than 1,000 times its ¥3 million budget.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Aug 8, 2019

Marking 30 years since Takeshi Kitano's debut feature, 'Violent Cop'

On Aug. 12, 1989, "Beat" Takeshi Kitano's debut as a director, "Violent Cop," was released in Japan. Kitano was already famous here as a TV comic and emcee, and was known abroad for his role as a brutal POW camp guard in Nagisa Oshima's 1983 World War II drama "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence."

Japan Times

CULTURE / TV & Streaming

Aug 7, 2019

'The Naked Director': A story of naked ambition and dubious morals

Since it launched here in September 2015, Netflix has built a long list of Japanese programming, from the hit reality series "Terrace House" to the manzai (comic duo) drama "Hibana: Spark." Mostly, though, it's the sort of fare you can find on network TV or in your local multiplex.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 7, 2019

'Paradise Next': When the music is better than the story

The lone, wandering gangster is as standard a figure in Japanese cinema as the lone, wandering samurai. Traditionally, both fought out of a self-imposed sense of duty and obligation.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 31, 2019

'Melancholic': When cleaning the tub brings dirtier jobs

Almost every year at the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) at least one film by a new Japanese director gets talked up by visiting programmers, journalists and critics as a find.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 24, 2019

'A Girl Missing': You can run, but you can't hide

Mariko Tsutsui already had many stage, TV and film credits when she appeared in Koji Fukada's 2016 drama "Harmonium." But her performance as a woman whose life is destroyed by Tadanobu Asano's seductive ex-con was a revelation. She made the leap from the naive and sexually starved wife of the film's...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 17, 2019

'Tokyo Ghoul "S"': A college, a cafe and a cannibal

Big pop-culture franchises generate movie sequels as naturally as chickens lay eggs.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Jul 11, 2019

Tomorrow's film legends descend on Saitama

Launched in 2004 to promote digital cinema, the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival (July 13-21) in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, has become a showcase for emerging filmmakers. Among the Skip City alumni who have gone on to thriving careers are Cannes Palme d'Or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan ("Winter...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 10, 2019

'Tourism': Not quite the trip of a lifetime

Taking a pleasure trip abroad used to be a big, once-in-a-lifetime event for the average Japanese. The No. 1 dream destination was Hawaii, since it was seen as glamorous and exotic, yet safe and familiar. A view of Diamond Head out the hotel window and miso ramen on the restaurant menu, in kanji yet....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 3, 2019

'Diner': Maybe find another place to eat

The aesthetic of photographer and director Mika Ninagawa is gaudy to the nth degree. She crowds blood-red roses into her frame like crammed commuters in a rush-hour train. When she makes it rain, her actors may as well be standing under Niagara Falls.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 26, 2019

Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Filming and acting outside your comfort zone

When Japanese directors of a certain age and status film abroad, they usually head for developed countries, not developing ones. Although, to be fair, their choice of foreign locales often comes down to box-office calculations. Japanese audiences enjoy seeing famous European sites on the screen (and...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 26, 2019

'Bento Harassment': Learning lessons with lunchboxes

Japanese movies and TV dramas often feature scenes of mothers making elaborate bento lunches from scratch for their offspring. Seeing these women washing rice in icy water with bare hands before the crack of dawn I reflect back to my own school lunches of PB&J or bologna sandwiches, assembled in minutes...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 19, 2019

'Handling Method for Grumpy Woman': A battle of the sexes, cliches and all

To talk about the differences between men and women now is to step into a minefield. One rhetorical foot wrong and off goes the tripwire.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 12, 2019

'To the Ends of the Earth': Tough times for travel reporting

Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Atsuko Maeda make an odd couple: The former is best known abroad as a master of horror, starting with his 1997 international breakthrough "Cure," while the latter was a star of idol-pop group AKB48, but has since gone on to a thriving acting career.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 5, 2019

'Erica 38': The rise and fall of a true con artist

Con artists in movies are typically likeable rogues who prey on the deserving. The title character of Yuichi Hibi's "Erica 38," who is neither "Erica" nor "38," is closer to the unlikable reality: A woman who dupes others with no discernible guilt or remorse, even when her victims are on the verge of...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.

Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building

By Patrick St. Michel

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