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August 16, 2025
 

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James Hadfield
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 12, 2015
A disfigured face drags ghosts back to postwar Berlin in 'Phoenix'
In Kobo Abe's 1964 novel "Tanin no Kao" ("The Face of Another"), a scientist left disfigured by an industrial accident dons a synthetic mask and poses as a different man in order to seduce his estranged wife. When she responds rather too readily to his advances, he reacts angrily, only to discover that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Aug 12, 2015
Director attacks critics who claim Japanese films fall short of Hollywood standards
In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Shinji Higuchi, the director picked by Toho to revive its dormant "Godzilla" franchise, promised that his version of the iconic monster would be larger and more terrifying than its predecessors. However, the most hair-raising comment in the article was...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 6, 2015
Bryce Dallas Howard kicks her high heels up in 'Jurassic World'
Typical: You spend $150 million on your effects-heavy summer blockbuster, and all people want to talk about is a character's choice of footwear. When "Jurassic World," the long-gestating sequel to the original "Jurassic Park" trilogy, opened internationally in June, the film's producers probably weren't...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 6, 2015
New theme park, old problems, but 'Jurassic World' is still wild
Time hasn't been kind to Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park," the 1993 blockbuster that paved the way for every CGI-driven popcorn flick of the past two decades. But it isn't the movie's visual effects that betray its age: it's the setting. The film's titular theme park may have spent millions on cloning...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 5, 2015
Black depths of Swedish humor plumbed in 'A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence'
If Vladimir and Estragon, the hapless protagonists of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," had attempted to make a comedy sketch show, they might have ended up with something like "A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence." This mordant, strikingly original work from Swedish director Roy Andersson...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 31, 2015
Never mind the lineup: Fuji Rock is more than music
It has only been three years since Fuji Rock Festival posted its highest-ever attendance figures, with a little help from Radiohead and The Stone Roses, but you wouldn't have known it from the steady drumbeat of glumness that heralded this year's edition. Following a lackluster showing in 2014, when...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS
Jul 31, 2015
High-tech iced coffee cools the summer heat
As the Japanese summer reaches its sweltering zenith, a steamy cup of coffee in the morning no longer seems quite so inviting. It's time to drop your inhibitions, and reach for some ice.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 29, 2015
Ratcheting violence on Belfast's streets in '71
For the last three decades of the 20th century, Northern Ireland was mired in a toxic internecine conflict that came to be known as "the Troubles." Although bombings, assassinations, street battles and clashes with security forces claimed the lives of more than 3,600 people, it was an era defined as...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 22, 2015
'Wild Tales' and black comedy from the dark heart of Argentina
Forget about all the brassy, effects-laden blockbusters crowding the multiplexes this summer: For sheer entertainment value, none are likely to top this Argentine-Spanish anthology of comic shorts. Rich in black humor and satirical invective, "Wild Tales" became the most successful Argentinian movie...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 15, 2015
Walking the Australian Outback in a shirt and undies looks impossibly beautiful
What would compel a young woman to walk almost 1,700 miles across the Australian Outback, with only a dog and a quartet of camels for company? As real-life nomad Robyn Davidson (played by Mia Wasikowska) says at the start of "Tracks" — director John Curran's handsome biopic — "I believe that when...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 11, 2015
Modernity and magical realism in rural Japan
Tokyo may still be thriving, but in Japan's rural hinterlands, the country has already plunged into a state of advanced senescence. At the start of Kazuki Sakuraba's "Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuchibas," the book's narrator surveys her hometown and struggles to reconcile the stories of its prosperous...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 9, 2015
Japanese winemaker reflects on life and disaster in this succinct New Zealand documentary
Today's documentarians may dream of making epic Frederick Wiseman-style films, but online audiences aren't usually so patient. Three hours? You'll be lucky to hold someone's attention for three minutes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 8, 2015
The avalanche of cringe in 'Force Majeur'
When a crisis hits, it's hard to say how any of us will react. Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), a handsome alpha-male type, has managed to drag himself away from work to join his family on a skiing trip in the French Alps. The first day of the holiday passes without incident, but on the second, their lunch...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE HIGH GROUNDS
Jul 3, 2015
Subtly subversive coffee in Tokyo's book district
There's a spirit of openness in the Tokyo coffee scene at the moment that's really quite refreshing. Rather than jealously guarding their secrets, the current crop of baristas and specialty roasters are talking, sharing and egging each other on.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 1, 2015
'Avengers: Age of Ultron' didn't need a director
How many superheroes does it take to make a movie? At this point, Marvel Studio's cinematic empire is getting so overpopulated that you'd need a spreadsheet to keep track of who everyone is. There are over a dozen comic-book characters vying for attention in "Avengers: Age of Ultron," — some who have...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 24, 2015
Turkey's master of slow-boil cinema keeps his characters simmering with tension in 'Winter Sleep'
This may seem an odd form of praise, but Nuri Bilge Ceylan does boredom awfully well. The Turkish director's last film, "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" (2011), was a police procedural that had been denuded of the drama you'd normally expect from the genre. Yet as its protagonists trudged fruitlessly from...
CULTURE / Film
Jun 24, 2015
'Through a Lens Darkly' documents the immense power that images have in the African-American community
After the shooting of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, news media briefly circulated a photo of the 18-year-old flashing a "gang sign," transforming him into a menace to society. Twitter users, many of them also young, black males, responded by posting side-by-side photos...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 20, 2015
Cult manga artist Tadao Tsuge's 'Trash Market' is filled with dark tales of misfits and lowlifes
"Too dark, won't sell, no commissions" — such was Tadao Tsuge's verdict on his oeuvre back in 1994. Though he was a noted contributor to alternative manga magazine "Garo" in its heyday during the late 1960s and early '70s, Tsuge remains a cult figure even in Japan, overshadowed by the reputation of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 17, 2015
'Mad Max: Fury Road' is so good at spectacular violence that it injures itself
If you want a vision of the future, at least from George Miller's perspective, picture a boot stamping on a human face for about two hours. Those in search of a bludgeoning good time will find it in his new scorched-earth action extravaganza, "Mad Max: Fury Road" — it's hard to remember the last time...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 10, 2015
Life inside a Nepalese cable car in 'Manakamana'
One summer in Tokyo, as I was unemployed and without any better ideas about how to occupy myself, I spent an entire day riding the Yamanote Line. It takes roughly one hour to complete a loop of the line and, in the course of the day, I managed 19 laps before having to stop and catch the last train home....
The indelible memory of being a part of Unit 731
Hideo Shimizu, 95, says he cannot forget seeing the prisoners' bloody wills scribbled on the walls of prison cells at Unit 731 in 1945.
Japanese star convicted of indecent assault in Hong Kong
J-pop idol Kenshin Kamimura leaves the West Kowloon Law Courts on bail in Hong Kong on Wednesday, after he was found guilty of indecent assault of a woman who worked as his interpreter at a restaurant in Mong Kok district in March this year.
Tens of thousands left stranded at Osaka Expo by train service interruption
Visitors rest inside the Osaka Expo venue early Thursday morning
Welcoming foreign residents benefits Japan, three quarters of economists say
The streets of Tokyo's Ginza district in April. The number of foreign residents in Japan hit a record high at 3.76 million as of the end of last year, comprising just over 3% of the population.
Hiker missing in Hokkaido after bear attack found dead
The Rausu mountain range at Hokkaido's Shiretoko National Park. A man in his 20s who went missing after being attacked by a bear while hiking on Mount Rausu has been found dead.
The indelible memory of being a part of Unit 731
Hideo Shimizu, 95, says he cannot forget seeing the prisoners' bloody wills scribbled on the walls of prison cells at Unit 731 in 1945.
Will Ishiba's critics be able to garner enough support for a leadership race?
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's political survival likely hinges on whether a leadership race will take place within the Liberal Democratic Party following its decision to have its election committee canvass the opinions of party members and prefectural chapters on the subject.
Hidden rosters and the legacy of Japan’s germ warfare
Katsutoshi Takegami, 77, in his storehouse attic where he discovered his father's Unit 1644 documents
Osaka Expo highlights the challenge of holding events in Japan's scorching summer
People huddle near a large fan blowing icy-cold mist at the Osaka Expo on July 12. Amid Japan's relentless summer heat, organizes have put myriad measures in place in order to keep guests safe.
At Himawari Shokudo 2, Italian food with a Japanese soul
At Himawari Shokudo 2, chef Hozumi Tanaka serves Italian-inspired fare with a focus on Toyama produce, such as this appetizer of lightly blanched "hotaru ika" (firefly squid) served atop mixed wild plants and a crepe prepared from "yamato-imo" yam.

Podcast

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

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers
By Tomoko Otake

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