'A Girl Missing': You can run, but you can't hide
Mariko Tsutsui already had many stage, TV and film credits when she appeared in Koji Fukada's 2016 drama "Harmonium." But her performance as a woman whose life is destroyed by Tadanobu Asano's seductive ex-con was a revelation. She made the leap from the naive ...
'Weathering With You': Breezy with scattered showers
Arriving in the middle of a seemingly endless rainy season in Tokyo, "Weathering With You" feels like it's benefitted from an ingenious stealth marketing campaign. Little has been left to chance with Makoto Shinkai's follow-up to "Your Name." The film raked in nearly $360 ...
'Tokyo Ghoul "S"': A college, a cafe and a cannibal
Big pop-culture franchises generate movie sequels as naturally as chickens lay eggs. Directed by first-timers Kazuhiko Hiramaki and Takuya Kawasaki, "Tokyo Ghoul 'S'" is a follow-up to "Tokyo Ghoul," a 2017 sci-fi horror film based on Sui Ishida's hit manga about a college boy who ...
'Under Your Bed': Sleeping with the enemy
Rare is the child who hasn't lain awake at night, terrified by the monster they imagine is lurking beneath their bed. But in a country where many people grow up sleeping on futons, such fears are perhaps less deeply rooted. That would explain why, ...
'Five Million Dollar Life': Assessing the value of a single life
The weight of expectations — from family, friends, community — can be tough on any young person. Now imagine those people once paid $5 million to save your life. That's the premise behind "Five Million Dollar Life," the debut film from director Sungho Moon. It's ...
'Diner': Maybe find another place to eat
The aesthetic of photographer and director Mika Ninagawa is gaudy to the nth degree. She crowds blood-red roses into her frame like crammed commuters in a rush-hour train. When she makes it rain, her actors may as well be standing under Niagara Falls. This may ...
'Strawberry Song': Reuniting is such sweet sorrow
Kota (Yutaro Furutachi) is a bit of an odd one: the type of grinning, hyperactive character you might label a lovable eccentric. He lives with just a few cats for company, and works at a frozen food factory where he's treated with affection by ...
'Bento Harassment': Learning lessons with lunchboxes
Japanese movies and TV dramas often feature scenes of mothers making elaborate bento lunches from scratch for their offspring. Seeing these women washing rice in icy water with bare hands before the crack of dawn I reflect back to my own school lunches of ...
'The Journalist': Uncovering the dark side of Japan
Before Donald Trump made "fake news" the buzzword of choice for dissemblers and autocrats, Japanese netizens were already starting to question the veracity of what they read in the papers, albeit for very different reasons. The media's handling of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, in ...
'Handling Method for Grumpy Woman': A battle of the sexes, cliches and all
To talk about the differences between men and women now is to step into a minefield. One rhetorical foot wrong and off goes the tripwire. But Shunsuke Arita's new comedy "Handling Method for Grumpy Woman" strides blithely into this minefield, awkward English title and all. ...
'Ride Your Wave': Love, loss, the sea and a surfboard
Since his theatrical debut "Mind Game" (2004), director Masaaki Yuasa has been known for warped, psychedelic films and TV series that stretch the limits of the imagination. Over the past few years, though, Yuasa has signaled an interest in making more accessible films. The ...
'To the Ends of the Earth': Tough times for travel reporting
Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Atsuko Maeda make an odd couple: The former is best known abroad as a master of horror, starting with his 1997 international breakthrough "Cure," while the latter was a star of idol-pop group AKB48, but has since gone on to a ...
