In 2006, professional football player Steve Gleason made one of the most dramatic plays in NFL history when he blocked a punt that led his team, the New Orleans Saints, to its first home victory following Hurricane Katrina. Five years later, he was diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and ...
At a time when peace appears fragile, veteran film director Nobuhiko Obayashi is not wasting any moment to remind the world's young crop of creators about their power to rid the world of nuclear and other security threats. "I am part of the last generation ...
In a career spanning three decades, Yoshihiro Nishimura has done about every job on the credit crawl — from gaffer to director. He is best known, however, as a mad master of effects and makeup, spewing blood sprays that achieve a certain demented grandeur ...
Banzai to fossil fuels! Lots of love to gas-guzzlers! That's the basic sentiment behind "Baby Driver," which is all screeching tires and revving engines, unfolding to what has got to be the coolest movie soundtrack of 2017. Directed by Edgar Wright ("Hot Fuzz," "Shaun of ...
The word "nisshiki" (Japanese style) can often be seen on storefront signs in Taiwan to indicate chic, high-end products. It's a little similar to what we in Japan associate with luxury items from France, though "nisshiki" is a holdover from the days when Taiwan ...
Movie fight scenes, even ones that are acted by martial arts experts, rarely duplicate what actually transpires on a street or battlefield. After all, they're performed for entertainment, not as actual matters of life or death. And yet, surrounded by the cast members of Yuji ...
It seems strange to say, but "A Quiet Passion," a biopic on American poet Emily Dickinson, feels tailored to Japan's sensitive side with its emphasis on inner calm and the dynamics of the family circle. Cynthia Nixon, best known from the HBO series "Sex and ...
If they did it to Cutie Honey and Fujiko Mine, they can do it to Wonder Woman. I’m talking about the kawaii treatment, which works like a kiss of death to bad-ass super-heroines in Japanese pop culture. Like Wonder Woman, Cutie Honey and Fujiko were ...
If you were a Shibuya regular 20 years ago, chances are you would have seen, or even made contact with, Kohki Hasei. Fresh from an Okayama high school, he came to seek his fortune on the streets of the capital. The first job he ...
South Korean prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into award-winning filmmaker Kim Ki-duk on Thursday amid allegations that he hit an actress while shooting a movie, a spokesman said. Kim's glittering career prizes include the Golden Lion for best film at the Venice Film Festival for ...
Takeshi Fukunaga first came to international attention at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival, where his debut feature, "Out of My Hand," premiered. He is only now bringing the film to his homeland, and at a preview screening at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of ...
Japanese directors have made films in many different settings, but it's safe to say Takeshi Fukunaga is the first of his countrymen to direct a narrative feature set partly in Liberia, a small African country not too long ago embroiled in a bloody civil ...
For young Japanese who have known only peace, an animated portrait of an ordinary woman's wartime life has brought the devastation of war and nuclear weapons close to home. Based on a manga by Hiroshima native Fumiyo Kono, "Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni" ("In This ...
