Mark Schilling - The Japan Times

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Mark Schilling

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 4, 2015

Chihiro Ikeda's 'Tokyo no Hi' is a worthy addition to the slacker genre

Can we please cut the Japanese movie slacker some slack? Usually a guy past the age when most contemporaries have entered official adulthood — defined here as holding a full-time (if not necessarily lifetime) job — the slacker hero makes do with part-time gigs, or spinning his unemployed wheels....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Nov 4, 2015

'Unbroken' finally gets a break in Japan

For the better part of a year, "Unbroken" has been unwatchable in Japanese theaters.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 28, 2015

'Boku wa Bosan' depicts the mundane reality of life as a Japanese monk

One thing I learned on coming to Japan as an earnest foreign student of Buddhism was that the young monks — those shaven-headed fellows in picturesque robes diligently sweeping the temple grounds — are less ascetic than they look. Off duty, they knock back beers, warble at karaoke bars and in general...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 22, 2015

Tokyo film festival ups its domestic fare

The 28th edition of the Tokyo International Film Festival, which began yesterday, is the biggest event on the Japanese film calendar. And like any such event, TIFF has had its share of critics over the years.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 21, 2015

Androids and the avant-garde: The best Japanese films screening at TIFF

The Tokyo International Film Festival offers a once-a-year chance to see Japanese movies, both new and classic, with English subtitles. Getting tickets, however, especially for the films in the Competition and Special Screenings sections, may not be easy. With that caveat, here are my personal picks...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Oct 21, 2015

The foreign element at the Kyoto International Film and Art Festival

While covering the recently ended second edition of the Kyoto International Film and Art Festival, I again realized that being a non-native isn't always such a bad deal in a country that prides itself on its omotenashi (hospitality) to outsiders.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 14, 2015

The future of comedy looks bleak in 'Galaxy Turnpike'

Comedy is hard. That's what many comedians say, at least. Think of Charlie Chaplin filming hundreds of takes per immortal gag.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Oct 14, 2015

Restored and rediscovered Kon Ichikawa films to screen at TIFF

With the centennial of his birth this year, Promethean director Kon Ichikawa (1915-2008) is due for a revival. The upcoming Tokyo International Film Festival is accordingly screening three of his films in its new Japanese Cinema Classics section.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 7, 2015

'Bakuman' depicts a life-or-death quest for manga success

High school kids dream big dreams, and in Japan one of the biggest is to be a successful manga artist. The financial rewards for a hit manga published in a national magazine and sold in paperback editions are substantial. And the accompanying recognition and power — with adoring fans pleading for autographs...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 30, 2015

Quadruple amputee yakuza raises hell in 'Daruma'

Yakuza are not usually thought of as disabled, but more than a few have had their pinky fingers, or a section thereof, sliced off with a blade. Traditionally, this disabling is punishment for violating the gang code.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 23, 2015

An unlikely partnership between women blooms in 'Rasen Ginga'

A fresh, incisive take on a common if little-filmed type of relationship, especially in hierarchy-loving Japan.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 16, 2015

Japan through the lens of its film genres

As a new reporter for a movie trade magazine, I quickly learned that every film has its genre — even ones that don't play by genre rules. The industry slices genre-straddling films into discrete categories: action, comedy, sci-fi, etc. Call it crude, but this system serves a purpose: If you're a buyer...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 16, 2015

Girls take charge of their love lives in 'Chigasaki Story'

Koji Fukada's 2013 beach film "Hotori no Sakuko" ("Au Revoir l'Ete") was a loving homage to French master Eric Rohmer, with lengthy European-style vacations bestowed on Fukada's Japanese protagonists.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 9, 2015

Schoolgirls with dubious impulses run wild in 'Our Huff and Puff Journey'

When I was living in a student sharehouse, a fellow resident proposed breaking into a nearby public pool for a midnight swim.

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Sep 9, 2015

Kyoto International Art and Film Festival is a challenge to Tokyo's cultural power

The Kyoto International Film and Art Festival, which takes place from Oct. 15 to 18 in Japan's ancient capital, began as a sort of challenge to the local film industry's power center, Tokyo.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Sep 2, 2015

'Neko Samurai 2' finds a swordsman and his feline shipwrecked on a tropical island

Japanese audiences have long loved movies about dogs and cats. But non-Japanese critics and festival programmers? Not so much. The rampant sentimentalism and blatant commercialism of these films have stuck in the craw of many critics.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 26, 2015

Ex-AKB48 star resists a sleazy stranger on train in 'Round Trip Heart'

Pushing a food-and-drinks cart on an express train used to be a something of a glamour job for young Japanese women (or something of a comedown if they aspired to be flight attendants).

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Aug 26, 2015

Will another Miyazaki save Japanese cinema from Hollywood?

In the 1990s, when I was reporting on the Japanese film business for a British trade magazine, big-budget Hollywood movies with splashy special effects dominated the local box office. And the industry consensus was that resistance — in the form of made-in-Japan effects extravaganzas — was futile....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 19, 2015

A militaristic turn for the Japanese film industry

Why have Japanese filmmakers recently been turning out so many films about World War II and its aftermath? The obvious answer is that they're commemorating the 70th anniversary of that war's end, which was marked on Aug. 15. But there are far fewer new films about WWII in most of the countries that fought...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Aug 19, 2015

'At Home' paints a terrible portrait of crime and family in Japan

So you want to make a movie about a happy family with a burglar dad, swindler mom and three smiling kids who have no problems with what their parents do for a living? Surely the obvious — indeed only — approach to a film like this is to make it a black comedy.

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

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

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