James Hadfield - The Japan Times

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James Hadfield

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 11, 2018

'Liverleaf': Sadistic school bullies get their comeuppance in a bloody, bleak thriller

From "Battle Royale" to "The World of Kanako," the past 20 years of Japanese cinema have yielded countless examples of school kids behaving very, very badly. Director Eisuke Naito is a specialist in the genre: He started his career with the charmingly titled "Let's Make the Teacher Have a Miscarriage...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 4, 2018

'Saimon & Tada Takashi': High school drama with anime and sci-fi twists

The pangs of unrequited love are a familiar staple in high-school movies, but it's not often that they involve an altercation with a flying saucer. In his lopsided debut feature, "Saimon & Tada Takashi," writer-director Manabu Oda mixes sensitive teen drama with surreal humor and low-budget sci-fi schlock....

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 28, 2018

'Sakana Zukan': Sakanaction excels when it wades through shallow territory

Now that Spotify playlists have supplanted albums as the preferred method of consuming an artist's work, the concept of greatest-hits compilations feels both prescient and redundant, like releasing DJ mix albums in the era of SoundCloud. For the musicians themselves, though, such compilations can offer...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 21, 2018

'Dynamite Graffiti': Sleaze to some and art to others

At the peak of its popularity in the 1980s, the innocuously named "Shashin Jidai" ("Photo Age") sold 350,000 copies a month. Edited by the self-made publishing impresario Akira Suei, the magazine featured cutting-edge photography by the likes of Nobuyoshi Araki and Daido Moriyama and in-depth articles...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Mar 15, 2018

Netflix's new yakuza flick has Jared Leto on the outs with critics

In his 1999 book "Tokyo Underworld," Robert Whiting told the real-life story of Nick Zappetti, a former American GI in postwar Japan who becomes embroiled in a world of yakuza and corrupt politicians. Subtitled "The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan," it had all the hallmarks...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 7, 2018

Clint Eastwood's Japan critics are always there to make his day

"Everybody knocks out a flop every now and then," quipped Clint Eastwood during a recent interview to promote his latest movie, "The 15:17 to Paris."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 28, 2018

Yorgos Lanthimos' latest is absurd, abrasive and, on second watch, rather funny

Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos has been responsible for some of the most provocative and peculiar films of the past decade. His Oscar-nominated movie "Dogtooth" (2009) depicted a married couple who had kept their grown-up children confined at home for their entire lives. "The Lobster" (2015) — his...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 31, 2018

'Manhunt': Action maestro John Woo drops the baton

'Manhunt' has got the white doves, gratuitous slo-mo and operatic gunplay that fans of Woo's earlier films would expect, but the whole thing is as slackly executed as an 'Expendables' movie.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jan 30, 2018

Falsettos offers an alternative to 'macho rock'

If you're playing in a group in Japan and your members all happen to be female, sooner or later you're going to get slapped with the "girls' band" tag. The term has been used willy-nilly to describe everything from the manufactured guitar-pop of late-'80s chart-toppers Princess Princess to the experimental...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 24, 2018

'Midnight Bus': A trundling bus trip to boresville

Taizo Harada plays Toshikazu 'Riichi' Takamiya in Masao Takeshita's 'Midnight Bus,' a film that feels overlong and lacks emotional punch.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jan 23, 2018

London is the place to be for Luby Sparks

Some bands have all the luck. While many of their peers will probably be toiling on the live circuit for years before gaining any recognition beyond their immediate circle of friends, the college kids of Luby Sparks are already going places.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 20, 2017

Working in the film industry as a non-Japanese has its own challenges

Japan is home to one of the most lucrative movie industries in the world, and also one of the most prolific: 1,149 films received a theatrical release during 2016, over 600 of which were domestic productions. It can be hard to stand out in such a crowded marketplace and the challenges are often compounded...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 29, 2017

'Vu Ja De': Fans of Haruomi Hosono are rewarded with a deep dive

At a recent concert in Tokyo, Haruomi Hosono enlisted a pair of comedy acts to open the proceedings. First stand-up duo Knights did a routine based on mangled misreadings of the headliner's Wikipedia page, then impersonator Michiko Shimizu and her brother, Ichiro, performed the Happy End song "Aiaigasa"...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Nov 16, 2017

Steven Soderbergh looks to get 'Lucky' with a new distribution model for films

He's been away for such a short time, you may not have noticed Steven Soderbergh had even stopped making movies. In 2013, the director — who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes with his 1989 debut, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape," when he was just 26 years old — announced his retirement from filmmaking, citing...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Nov 14, 2017

The music you didn't realize you grew up with: Chip Tanaka's 8-bit revolution

If you grew up during the 1980s or 1990s, there's a good chance that you spent more time listening to the music of Hirokazu Tanaka than to many of your favorite pop songs. Such was the reach of the work that the Kyoto native created during his nearly 20-year tenure as a sound designer at Nintendo, as...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

Nov 8, 2017

When you go to a film festival, all you can do is roll the dice and pray for gold

Covering a film festival is what's known in the profession as a crapshoot. No matter how many screenings you manage to clock, you're probably going to miss half of the flicks that end up winning prizes.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Oct 17, 2017

Psych-rock act Kikagaku Moyo makes a virtue of DIY and keeping it 'sloppy'

If you were to glance at Kikagaku Moyo's tour itinerary for 2017, it would be easy to forget that the group was Japanese at all. The psych-rock quintet recently completed the second leg of a European tour that encompassed nearly 50 dates, having racked up 26 shows around North America earlier in the...

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHY DID YOU LEAVE JAPAN?

Oct 14, 2017

Sound artist Aki Onda explores memory through sound

'I never miss Japan,' says New York resident Aki Onda. 'Now I have a distance — that's why I enjoy going back to Tokyo.'

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Sep 20, 2017

Sapphire Slows is getting more vocal, and not just in her music

When she first emerged on Tokyo's bedroom producer scene in 2011, Sapphire Slows shot to prominence almost instantly, scoring a release on voguish Los Angeles label Not Not Fun mere months after starting out. A full-length album, "Allegoria," followed on the same label in late 2013; and then, like the...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Sep 12, 2017

Wonk plays around with 'experimental soul' on a pair of new albums

"The way music from America and other Western countries got imported into Japan, the roots are different," says Ayatake Ezaki, keyboardist for Tokyo-based quartet Wonk.

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.

What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji

By Alex K.T. Martin

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