Mark Schilling - The Japan Times

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Mark Schilling

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 19, 2017

'Side Job.' presents an authentic portrayal of life in Fukushima after disaster

The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 and its aftermath have been the focus of many films, both fiction and nonfiction. However, most of them have been by filmmakers who've come from outside Fukushima Prefecture, where the disaster hit hardest.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 12, 2017

'Alley Cat': Hideo Sakaki delivers a fresh take on the buddy movie

In Japanese films, a lot of what used to be considered extreme is now routine. Geysers of blood and flying body parts may still thrill fanboys, but to me that sort of play violence has become about as exciting as the spin cycle.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 5, 2017

Gross-out gags make 'Gintama' a miss

Some actors have a knack for picking good material. And some, like Shun Oguri, drift from stinker to stinker: "Museum," "Terra Formars," "Galaxy Turnpike," "Lupin the Third."

CULTURE / Film

Jun 28, 2017

Issey Ogata finds wonderland in Riga in 'Magic Kimono'

Issey Ogata has built his career on virtuoso one-man theater shows in which he changes characters, from drunken salaryman to female fishmonger, as easily as other actors change clothes, while amusing audiences and winning critical accolades with sui generis portrayals that dig down to universal human...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 28, 2017

'Marriage': Dean Fujioka evokes sympathy for the con man

Marriage scammers in the movies may be masters of deception, but their motives are usually clear enough. In Charlie Chaplin's "Monsieur Verdoux" (1947) the title character weds and murders widows to support his family. In Miwa Nishikawa's "Dreams for Sale" (2012), a husband and wife resort to serial...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 21, 2017

Don't follow this scary Pied Piper to the cinema

Released in 2003, Takashi Shimizu's "Ju-on: The Grudge" and "Ju-on: The Grudge 2" both had a simple premise — vengeful ghosts turn an ordinary suburban house into a death trap — but the scares, such as a kohl-eyed dead boy with a terrifying grip, were fresh and effective.

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Jun 15, 2017

A scorched-earth fix to a celebrity scandal

Scandals can send a celebrity's career careening off a cliff. This is especially true in Japan, where minor violations of the social code can lead to major personal repercussions.

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

Jun 14, 2017

Kendo drama 'Mukoku' takes a stab at Showa Era sports spirit

One of the attractions of Asian martial arts for many Westerners (including this one) is the promise of self-improvement that goes beyond better street fighting.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 7, 2017

'To Each His Own': Every wage slave needs a friend like this, but who is he?

Izuru Narushima's 'To Each His Own' is a serious treatment of the theme of 'black companies' that flirts with fantasy in its first half but shades to heart-warming melodrama in its second.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 31, 2017

Love comes as a light in the dark in 'Radiance'

'Radiance,' winner of the Ecumenical Prize at Cannes, is being promoted as a love story, but director-scriptwriter Naomi Kawase has more on her mind than getting her age-inappropriate pair into a clinch.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?

May 27, 2017

Kyoko Sato: Curator inspired by New York's artistic energy

Kyoko Sato hit bottom soon after arriving in New York in 2002 to be with the man who was to become her husband (since divorced). "I had been able to work freely in Japanese society, so I really suffered when I came (to the States) since I couldn't do that anymore," she says. "I had really loved my job...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 25, 2017

Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia teams up with Exile's Hiro to create a contemporary fusion of vision and sound

From its debut in 1999 as the passion project of actor Tetsuya Bessho, Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia has grown into a big event on the local and regional film calendar. Size is one reason: The 19th edition, which unspools from June 1 to 25 at six venues in Tokyo and Yokohama, features nearly 250...

CULTURE / Film

May 24, 2017

'A Beautiful Star': I'm an extraterrestrial, get me outta here

In 'A Beautiful Star,' Lily Franky plays the father in a family that turns out to be made up mostly of aliens.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 18, 2017

Japan's filmmakers expand their idea of overseas opportunity

The Japanese film industry has long been insular, making films by and for Japanese with little input from, or concern for, the outside world.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 17, 2017

Takeda scores a KO in 'Poetry Angel'

In last week's review of Yuya Ishii's "The Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue," I wrote that poetry-based Japanese films are rare — but here seems to be another: Toshimitsu Iizuka's "Poetry Angel." One more example and I'll have a trend.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 10, 2017

A love story that's overly dense with prose

These days, Japanese films are based on everything from novels to game apps, but Yuya Ishii's "The Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue," which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival this year, is a rare feature inspired by a book of poetry. Its author, Tahi Saihate, is only 31 but has...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 3, 2017

'Teiichi: Battle of the Supreme High' takes high school politics to a whole new level

Japan's film and TV industries are populated by hundreds of comedy writers, but few find politics funny, at least in public. One exception is filmmaker Akira Nagai, whose power struggles unfold not in the Diet, but at an elite boys' high school in "Teiichi: Battle of the Supreme High."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 26, 2017

'Blade of the Immortal': Film version of manga hit goes overboard in its execution

Based on Hiroaki Samura's long-running (1993-2012) manga, the samurai swashbuckler "Blade of the Immortal" promises the sort of fun, over-the-top action that has long been a trademark of its director, Takashi Miike.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 19, 2017

Roger Pulvers challenges the idea of a hero in directorial debut, 'Star Sand'

Roger Pulvers has had the sort of free-ranging, multifaceted career that seems like a dream in this specialized age, when academics labor in their narrow professional silos.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.

Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

Fujitsu crafts sustainable innovation for itself, society

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