Last summer saw the release of what would become the highest grossing Japanese animation film to date, Makoto Shinkai’s “Your Name.,” which was also the country’s top box-office draw of 2016. The surprise hit’s main characters are a pair of body-swapping teenagers. A survey conducted by the Fields Research Institute ...
Hiroyuki Ikeuchi has what we refer to in showbiz as “the look.” Sure, the 40-year-old actor has been working as an actor since his teens, even stepping behind the camera in 2006 for “Thirteen Moons.” But it’s his distinctive look that people remember. He ...
Released in 2003, Takashi Shimizu’s “Ju-on: The Grudge” and “Ju-on: The Grudge 2” both had a simple premise — vengeful ghosts turn an ordinary suburban house into a death trap — but the scares, such as a kohl-eyed dead boy with a terrifying grip, ...
It’s China in 1941 and the Imperial Japanese Army is on the move. A band of freedom fighters led by Ma Yuan (Jackie Chan) seek to hijack a train line that transports food supplies to the invaders, get away with the loot and feed ...
On the 50th anniversary of the premiere of the fifth 'James Bond' film in Japan, we explore spy rings in Tokyo, a secretive Sherlock Holmes society and an Australian double agent behind 007's Japanese adventure.
Scandals can send a celebrity’s career careening off a cliff. This is especially true in Japan, where minor violations of the social code can lead to major personal repercussions. But even by Japanese standards the fallout from the June 2 arrest of actor Ryo ...
A top South Korean director called Wednesday for new rules on screening Netflix films in cinemas as local chains boycott his blockbuster over the U.S. streaming giant’s online policy. The movie “Okja”, directed by Bong Joon-ho, sparked controversy at this year’s Cannes film festival ...
One of the attractions of Asian martial arts for many Westerners (including this one) is the promise of self-improvement that goes beyond better street fighting. In Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s “Mukoku,” a turgid film set in the kendo world, mastery of the sword is supposed to ...
Loie Fuller was the ultimate “it girl.” A little-known dancer from Illinois, she wound up in turn-of-the-century Paris, smack-dab in the middle of La Belle Epoque. Her friends? They were artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and filmmakers the Lumiere Brothers, and her protegee was acclaimed ...
Japan’s Cannes prodigy Naomi Kawase believes Netflix can help unleash the creativity of her country’s film industry, despite the eruption of a row over the American streaming giant that marred the French film festival. Kawase, a regular at the world’s most prestigious film festival ...
Is The Invisible Man any match for Iron Man at the box office? That’s the question Universal Pictures will be testing with their Dark Universe — a connected, multi-film revival of the studios’ classic monster properties from the 1920s through 50s, including The Invisible ...
American culture in the mid-20th century begs a multitude of descriptions, but if I had to sum it up in one word, it would probably be “smoking.” People chain-smoked through the Vietnam protests, Watergate scandal, Stonewall riots and innumerable other events, both historic and ...
Izuru Narushima's "To Each His Own" is a serious treatment of the theme of "black companies" that flirts with fantasy in its first half but shades to heart-warming melodrama in its second.
