Mark Schilling - The Japan Times

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Mark Schilling

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Oct 6, 2006

She wanted to die, but war saved her life

Many recent Iranian films are about the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1980 to 1988, claimed a million lives and, as journalist Robert Fisk noted, "touched every family in both countries."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 23, 2006

Takashi Miike makes his mark

Whatever the place or occasion -- including a hurried press interview in the middle of a film festival, as happened at April's Udine Far East Film Festival for the screening of his first English-language film "Imprint" -- Takashi Miike is always gracious, patient, thoughtful and well spoken. In other...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 16, 2006

Having a laugh with Ryuichi Hiroki

A veteran director of "pink" movies, Ryuichi Hiroki won critical acclaim for the 1994 youth drama "800 (800 -- Two Lap Runner)," his breakthrough into straight films. He first collaborated with Shinobu Terajima -- star of his new movie "Yawarakai Seikatsu -- in "Vibrator," a romantic road movie that...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 8, 2006

A lifetime in search of Japan's true self

Shohei Imamura, who died on May 30, had one of the great careers of postwar Japanese film, winning the Cannes Palme d'Or twice, as well as many other awards and honors. But he spent much of that career on the fringes of the industry, like a bull elephant who separates himself from the herd and goes his...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jun 2, 2006

Adding color to darkness

Tall, bearded, bald and craggily handsome, Tetsuya Nakashima stands out in a crowd.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 17, 2006

Girls make their mark

Should women directors make films that are identifiably, even explicitly, female -- or should they invade traditional male preserves in gender neutral ways? Make action, horror and gross-out comedies for teenage boys? My own feeling is they should make whatever they want to make. My own observation,...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 19, 2006

Director Yanagimachi explores the human condition

Mitsuo Yanagimachi is enjoying a moment in the sun after nearly a decade in the twilight: His new film "Camus Nante Shiranai (Who's Camus Anyway?)" was screened in the Director's Fortnight section at Cannes, picked up for distribution in the United States and showered with rave reviews from everywhere....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF

Dec 25, 2005

Creators, not hacks

OUTLAW MASTERS OF JAPANESE FILM by Chris Desjardins. London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005, 262 pp., $19.95 (paper). IRON MAN: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto, by Tom Mes. FAB Press, 2005. 237 pp., $24.95 (paper) Foreign critics used to worship at the altars of Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi...

Features

Dec 25, 2005

Haruki Kadokawa: Spirits of the Yamato

Haruki Kadokawa is the closest Japanese equivalent to fabled Hollywood moguls like Sam Goldwyn or Howard Hughes in their glory days as master promoters and unrepentant egotists.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 16, 2005

Stripping it down, thriving on basics

Born in 1970 into an acting family -- his father is butoh master Akaji Maro and his brother is rising star Nao Omori -- Tatsushi Omori served as an assistant director for Junji Sakamoto and Kazuyuki Izutsu before working for producer/director Genjiro Arato on "Akame Shijuha-taki Shinju Misui" in 2003...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 3, 2005

Making a difference in Japanese cinema

Film critics, like any one else, have their pet causes -- films and careers they want to boost or bury. But unless they wield the clout of a Roger Ebert, they are just one voice in a choir that, with the Internet, is growing by the dozens every day. Singing as sweetly as they want about their favorite...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jul 6, 2005

A prize-winning director quite happy to have a laugh

With his short-brimmed hat and carefully trimmed goatee, Kenji Uchida looks strikingly like the private investigator played by So Yamanaka in "Unmei Janai Hito."

CULTURE / Film

Mar 16, 2005

Directing duo blossoms

In 1990, shortly after I started reviewing for The Japan Times, I saw a film by a former porno director, Shun Nakahara, that made me think I was not wasting my time after all.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 19, 2005

Not a whodunit but a whydunit

Coming last in a daylong round of media interviews, I was expecting my 40 minutes with Shinji Aoyama to be strained, as in "I'm so tired I can hardly stand." Instead, he came into the meeting room at Toho with a smile and a brisk manner, as in "I'm just getting warmed up." While he was obviously there...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 29, 2004

Buy local produce

Japanese films had a good 2004, even if eight of the 10 top box-office slots went to Hollywood. The Japanese exhibition business is coming to resemble the American one, with more multiplex screens and wider openings. This structure favors major Hollywood product -- the latest "Harry Potter" or "Lord...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 22, 2004

Making love from the inside out

Vital Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Shinya Tsukamoto Running time: 86 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] When Shinya Tsukamoto released his first feature, "Tetsuo," in 1989, many critics compared the crazed black-and-white speed dream...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 22, 2004

Tsukamoto's great escape

Although his onscreen characters usually range from the demonic to the neurotic, in person Shinya Tsukamoto is the picture of gentle-spirited, well-mannered sanity. One can imagine him as the ideal maitre d' for an exclusive club, able to soothe even the most savage millionaire.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 15, 2004

Godzilla is dead, long live Godzilla

What do most non-Japanese, Western or otherwise, know about Japanese films? About Japanese pop culture, period? More than they did a decade ago certainly, but let's get real: Go to a typical family gathering in America — blue state or red, it doesn't much matter — and ask those assembled for the...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 8, 2004

Dark clouds over Japan

Lady Joker Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Hideyuki Hirayama Running time: 121 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Why do films about salarymen tend to be either heavy-footed, with the principals rarely cracking a smile or otherwise dispelling...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 1, 2004

Wanting a piece of the rebel

Aoi Kuruma Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Director: Hiroshi Okuhara Running time: 90 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Plenty of Japanese directors are making films about the way the young live now, so many that I could probably fill this space...

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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