Film

Thai filmmaker Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit wasn't sure whether to believe it when he was offered unfettered, behind-the-scenes access into the normally closely guarded and secretive world of one of Asia's biggest pop idol bands. Turns out the director got closer than he could have ever dreamed. "There ...

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 ...

Akio Fujimoto's "Passage of Life," a drama about the struggles of a Myanmar family in Japan and the troubled return of a mother and her children to Yangon, premiered at last year's Tokyo International Film Festival before continuing on to win honors and acclaim ...

Hollywood films about the immigrant experience are common enough (see "The Godfather" and other classic gangster movies for examples), while Japanese films on the same topic are rare, save for those about Zainichi (ethnic Koreans) in Japan. (Among the best is Zainichi director Yoichi ...

What passes for countryside in Japan is often a vast sprawl of low-rise development: chain restaurants, big-box stores, gas stations and pachinko parlors. While there's no shortage of films that have tried to capture the ennui of life in such areas, the results are ...

The 23rd edition of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) opened Oct. 4 as Typhoon Kong-rey approached the South Korean port city. When the storm peaked on Saturday morning, some public events were cancelled, but the screenings continued and were still packed with press, ...

I attended my first tea ceremony decades ago, as part of a company orientation. Kneeling on the floor, I sat in the formal seiza position, stumbled through the motions and sipped the thick green tea. Just as the pain in my legs was reaching ...

The sudden death of Ren Osugi last February robbed Japanese cinema of one of its most dependable actors. That loss is rendered all the more acute by "The Chaplain," Osugi's final screen role, and his debut as producer. It's the kind of serious, intelligent ...

Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, which selects a qualifying short film for the Academy Awards every year, will present its Autumn Screening from Oct. 5 to 12 at two locations in Tokyo. The program of 36 short films in various categories features big names ...

In the 1960s Koji Wakamatsu was Japanese cinema's enfant terrible: A real-life outlaw — he once joined a yakuza gang and served time in prison — he made pioneering "pink" (softcore porn) films such as "The Embryo Hunts in Secret" (1966) and "Go, Go, ...

"You Are the Apple of My Eye," a teen romance by writer and director Giddens Ko in 2011, became a hit not only in his native Taiwan but across Asia. Seeing it at the Udine Far East Film Festival, I was struck by the ...