James Hadfield - The Japan Times

January 24, 2025

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James Hadfield

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

May 18, 2016

'Hentai Kamen: Abnormal Crisis': Japan's pervy hero is top-crotch

If you're craving an alternative to the self-important bluster of Hollywood's never-ending superhero pageant, there's no need to wait until "Deadpool" opens in Japanese cinemas next month. For a quick fix of trashy comic-book irreverence, this homegrown product should do the trick nicely.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle

May 11, 2016

Big issues in film short 'World of Tomorrow'

Given the limited options for theatrical release, short films are generally condemned to the purgatory of YouTube, which makes the case of "World of Tomorrow" especially striking. Since premiering at last year's Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize, this 16-minute animation...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

May 6, 2016

Review: Worldwide Session at Studio Coast

Gilles Peterson has spent his entire career buoyed by gushing enthusiasm, but when the London-based DJ and record label boss declared a gig in Tokyo on May 4 to be a "career highlight," he was probably being sincere.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 27, 2016

'Captain America': Civil War: Marvel shows Superman how it's done

Have we reached peak superhero yet? After spending the winter months watching "Jessica Jones" and "Daredevil" on Netflix, viewers can now subject themselves to a barrage of comic-book spectacle at their local multiplex. Following last month's clattering, messy "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" comes...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Apr 13, 2016

'Youth': Sorrentino gets extra sentimental

"I don't want to read any more of it, write any more of it, I don't even want to talk about it anymore," said the novelist Philip Roth in 2012, as he announced his retirement from literature. "I'm tired of all that work. I'm in a different stage of my life."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Mar 31, 2016

Ryuichi Sakamoto offers his thoughts on politics, Japan and how his music will change 'post-cancer'

"The Professor" is back in town. Last weekend, Ryuichi Sakamoto took the stage at Tokyo Opera City for the debut concert of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra, a 105-strong ensemble of young musicians from Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, which counts him as its musical director.

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 30, 2016

3-D pornography is still pornography

During the heyday of Japan's "pink films" (cinematic porn) in the 1960s and '70s, directors were given free rein over their pictures as long as they included at least one sex scene per reel. For the late Koji Wakamatsu, perhaps the genre's most famous exponent, this was an opportunity to smuggle experimental...

CULTURE / Music

Mar 13, 2016

The Nihilist Spasm Band: 51 years later it's still chaos

Japanese TV had never seen anything like it. During the final episode of irreverent variety show "Tamori's Music is the World" in March 1996, viewers were introduced to a group of silver-haired Canadians billed as "the Rolling Stones of noise music" — a sobriquet that clearly owed more to their age...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 9, 2016

The Greek auteur who cooked up 'The Lobster'

When a gifted director ditches their native tongue and starts working in English, it can be a fraught process. For every Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, there's a Wong Kar-wai or Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, whose career still hasn't recovered since he parlayed the Oscar triumph of his 2006 drama "The...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Mar 9, 2016

Odious politicians could learn from 'Escobar: Paradise Lost'

As Donald Trump closes in on the U.S. presidency, it's worth remembering that the demagogic real-estate mogul is far from the most odious individual to have pursued a career in politics. Take Pablo Escobar, for instance: The notorious drug kingpin briefly served as a congressman in his native Colombia...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 24, 2016

Tarantino has a lot to say about nothing in 'The Hateful Eight'

Stranded by a blizzard in the wilds of post-Civil War Wyoming, a posse of Quentin Tarantino alumni convenes at a remote cabin for a murderous reunion party. They're an impressive bunch — weathered, whiskered and heavily armed — but their master's wit seems to have abandoned them to their fates, like...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 11, 2016

Apple fans get a fairly good origin story

'It's like five minutes before every launch, everyone goes to a bar and gets drunk and tells me what they really think," laments Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) during the closing stretch of Danny Boyle's buoyant, breathless biopic. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has done an ingenious job of condensing Walter...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Feb 10, 2016

Japan's unofficial rebuttal to 'The Cove'

For the past few weeks I've been having flashbacks of a video that a vegan acquaintance posted on Facebook. Shot on a hidden camera, it depicted hundreds of fluffy male chicks getting conveyed into an industrial grinder, their punishment for being deemed surplus to requirements. Omelets haven't tasted...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Jan 17, 2016

Inspiration that comes in dreams and rice balls

Ichiko Aoba takes her seat at an old-fashioned coffee house in Tokyo's Shibuya district, and places a sketchpad and a plump pouch of rolling tobacco on the table. During the hour-long conversation that follows, the tobacco goes untouched, but the sketchpad gets a thorough workout. As she talks, the 25-year-old...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Jan 6, 2016

'It Follows' goes after misogynist slasher film cliches

In the heyday of slasher films, the fastest way for characters to get themselves killed was by having sex. For a few bloodthirsty years following the release of John Carpenter's "Halloween" in 1978, audiences delighted in watching homicidal maniacs dispatch casts of copulating teens, before finally being...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 30, 2015

'Timbuktu' reflects on Malian lives touched by radical Islam

It's common for local distributors to resort to some dubious tactics when promoting foreign films in Japan: Worthy arthouse flicks are routinely saddled with tawdry Japanese titles, or slushy trailers more befitting of a Nicholas Sparks adaptation. Yet there's something particularly unfortunate about...

CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF

Dec 11, 2015

Secrets of Lawrence of Arabia; a computer judges classical musicians; CM of the week: Panasonic

The Middle East is a region that seems defined by its ongoing factional disputes, many of which are difficult to make sense of. This week, NHK's documentary series "The Profiler" (BS Premium, Wed., 9 p.m.) attempts to shed some light on the background of some of those disputes by looking at the life...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Music

Dec 6, 2015

Punk survivor Phew changes direction on 'A New World'

Even as a child, Phew realized she was a bit different. "When I was at school, if the teacher told a joke and everyone else in the class laughed, I was always the one who couldn't see what was funny," she says. "I've always been like that."

Japan Times

LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS

Dec 4, 2015

Coffee Amp turns the tables on Tokyo's imported coffee culture

For coffee lovers in Tokyo, the past five years have felt like a never-ending bonanza. Where once you might have trekked halfway across town to get a decent brew, now nearly every neighborhood seems to have its own micro-roaster or fancy coffee stand. Yet when Coffee Amp first opened in early 2010, at...

Japan Times

CULTURE / Film

Dec 2, 2015

'Spectre' relies on tired Bond film conventions

So this is it. After four outings as the world's best-dressed sociopath, Daniel Craig has announced that he's done playing 007. In a recent interview with London's Time Out, the 47-year-old actor declared with typically British understatement that he'd rather "slash my wrists" than sign on for another...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Atsuyoshi Koike, the president and CEO of Rapidus, says there is a “sense of urgency” when it comes to Japan’s efforts in manufacturing semiconductors. “We have to make sure we are successful,” he says.

Atsuyoshi Koike’s big game: Fourth down and 2 nanometers to go

By Kazuaki Nagata and Richard Meyer

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