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October 16, 2025
 

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Mark Schilling
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 19, 2007
'Tamamoe'
"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive," wrote Sir Walter Scott -- words of wisdom for married cheaters, who rarely turn out to be as clever in their sexual games as they first imagined. Too often passion overcomes prudence as hard-to-explain credit card bills and "business...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 18, 2007
An unflinching account of a cinema legend
Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies With Akira Kurosawa, by Teruyo Nogami. Stone Bridge Press: Berkeley, University of California Press, 2006, 296pp, $25 (cloth) Great directors, once dead, inevitably attract biographers, memoirists and critics in large numbers who chronicle and critique every aspect...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2007
In the presence of 'Emperor' Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa's assistant for almost four decades, Teruyo Nogami discusses the master filmmaker's genius, and his weaknesses
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 12, 2007
'Akumu Tantei'
Shinya Tsukamoto has long labored on the fringes of the Japanese film industry, not always by choice. The original cyberpunk bad boy of Japanese movies, Tsukamoto burst onto the scene in 1989 with "Tetsuo," a film so extreme in its violence, sex and general insanity, including an interlude with a whirling...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 5, 2007
'Soredemo Boku wa Yattenai'
Like many other foreigners here, I have had my brushes with the Japanese justice system, from ID checks by cops wanting to practice their English to one memorable appearance on a witness stand. I have also seen it in action as a moviegoer, from prison comedies (Yoichi Sai's "Keimusho no Naka [Doing Time]"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 4, 2007
NHK to unveil next-generation 3-D technology by next year
NHK, Japan's giant public broadcaster, has become a world leader in 3-D technology, in partnership with the private sector. NHK researchers have been developing 3-D systems since 1990 and NHK Technical Services, an NHK group company, has made more than 300 3-D programs to date, from live sports shows...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 19, 2006
Akebono: Yokozuna to K-1
GAIJIN YOKOZUNA: A Biography of Chad Rowan, by Mark Panek. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006, 301 pp., $24.95 (paper). Biographers of living celebrities must make a fundamental choice: write from the inside or the outside. At one extreme are the insiders -- friends, relations or paid hacks --...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 12, 2006
Ultraman . . . forever
The "Ultraman" live-action science-fiction series has been a rite of passage for Japanese boys (and a few girls) and their families for four decades now, since the first show was aired in 1966.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 20, 2006
An intro to Tokyo's film fest
The Tokyo International Film Festival, Japan's biggest, glitziest film fest, opens Saturday, Oct. 21, and runs for nine days at Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills in Roppongi, Bunkamura in Shibuya and other venues around the city. The selection is huge, beginning with the four main sections: the Competition,...
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...
Hypothermia in the land of the rising Sanae
Amid the election of Sanae Takaichi as Liberal Democratic Party president, and possibly the next prime minister, Japan's economy shows signs of recovery, but weak wages, a conservative corporate culture and currency issues raise doubts about a true economic thaw.
Number of scenarios now on the table for who might be Japan’s next prime minister
Newly-elected leader of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party Sanae Takaichi (right) celebrates with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba after winning the LDP leadership election in Tokyo on October 4.
Could an opposition candidate become Japan's next prime minister?
The lawmaker that secures a majority of votes in the Lower House will become prime minister. If no one gets a majority, the two top contenders will enter a runoff in which the person with the highest number of votes gets elected.
Coalition talks could bring Takaichi closer to being PM
Nippon Ishin no Kai leader and Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura meets with Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo on Wednesday.
As temperatures drop in Japan, bear attacks shoot up to historic highs
Bear warning signs at the Akita Prefectural Government building
Sumo is about to hit London and the West with a force previously unseen
Preparations advance on Monday for the Grand Sumo Tournament at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Number of scenarios now on the table for who might be Japan’s next prime minister
Newly-elected leader of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party Sanae Takaichi (right) celebrates with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba after winning the LDP leadership election in Tokyo on October 4.
Pace eyes great strides for Japan’s art market
Pace Japan Vice President Kyoko Hattori, the de facto head of the nation’s business, believes a larger, more lucrative art market will allow Japan to be more attractive for collectors.
A frenetic diplomatic schedule looms for Japan’s next leader — whomever that may be
As horse-trading and speculation surge over who will be elected the next prime minister in parliament — the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Sanae Takaichi or a possible candidate put forward by a unified opposition — Japan’s next leader will be confronted with a quick succession of key diplomatic events.
Ghost of Yotei’s bloodstained fun sidesteps Ainu identity
Ghost of Yotei, the follow-up to 2020's smash hit Ghost of Tsushima, is a violent, vengeful and engaging romp through 17th-century Hokkaido that fails to stick the landing on its most sensitive cultural material.

Podcast

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

Longform

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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

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