The Japanese film industry may be the second-biggest in Asia, but to Hollywood it is still an island unto itself, its inner workings little understood. And the knowledge gap goes the both ways too; Japanese filmmakers may mine Hollywood for ideas and inspiration, but ...

Live-action manga adaptations — from weepy dramas about teenage love to goofy comedies set in fantasy worlds — usually reflect real life only at its extremes, whether it's the melodramatic or the idiotic. Then there is "Hard-Core Heisei Hell's Bros.," a cult manga about two ...

Every year people from the film industry — buyers, programmers and critics — descend on the Tokyo International Film Festival to see what this country has to offer, and every year they usually find at least one gem among the selections in the Japanese ...

The Japanese suicide rate has fallen for eight straight years, to 21,321 in 2017, but this number is still high compared to other advanced countries, and is course of no consolation to the families of those who take their own lives. The effect of suicide ...

Mental illness takes many forms, but depression is among the most baffling to family and friends, since the afflicted may be physically healthy and verbally coherent but barely stir from bed for weeks or months at a time. But as Kosai Sekine shows with compassion ...

Twenty years ago, people packed theaters to watch a couple of Japanese teenagers view a strange videotape and soon after receive an ominous phone call with a cryptic message: "Seven days." Hideo Nakata's 1998 film "Ringu" (known as "The Ring" overseas) was just one of ...

In 2015, a dystopian omnibus film by five young directors from Hong Kong titled "Ten Years" became an indie hit. Envisioning the deteriorating state of the city in a decade's time, the film enraged Chinese authorities — and inspired "Ten Years" versions in Taiwan, ...

Born in Osaka in 1958, Junji Sakamoto belongs to a generation of Japanese directors who carved out independent paths in the industry, outside the then-defunct studio system. His feature debut, the 1989 boxing film "Knockout," won a shelf of domestic prizes, including the Blue ...

The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) offers fans a rare chance to see dozens of new and classic Japanese films with English subtitles on the big screen. Among my own picks for the event's 31st edition: 'Another World' (TIFF Competition): Junji Sakamoto's drama about two ...

As a film critic, I occasionally come across something on the screen that sets off fireworks in my brain. It happened with Sakura Ando's explosive performance as a desperate boxer in "100 Yen Love" and with the funny, surprising and moving zombie comedy "One ...