Many are the Japanese movies about virginal guys who are hopeless with women. One template is "Train Man," a 2005 hit about a shy otaku (geek) who lucks into a date with his dream girl — and needs an online support network to survive it. Hitoshi One's awkwardly if accurately titled ...
Japanese critics are calling "The Miracles of the Namiya General Store" the "most tear-inducing" story ever adapted from a Keigo Higashino novel. The best-selling author has penned such sensations as the thrillers "The Devotion of Suspect X" and "Journey Under the Midnight Sun," but ...
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is best known for films about ghosts and other types of strange phenomena that are capable of stirring foreboding feelings through mininal means such as curtains rustling ominously in the breeze or red duct tape stuck incongruously on doors. His new film, "Before ...
How do you imagine the coming alien invasion? Movies have been all over the map with this question, though in recent Japanese films such as Takashi Yamazaki's "Parasyte" duology (2013-14) and Daihachi Yoshida's "A Beautiful Star" (2017), extraterrestrial visitors take a human form. This is ...
It's an anime industry tradition that stretches back to the original "Mobile Suit Gundam": re-editing and adding new animation to popular television series in order to transform them into feature films. The latest anime to get the "compilation" treatment is "Eureka Seven," a 2005 sci-fi ...
Disability presents different challenges for everyone but wheelchair users share a common dilemma: Their mode of locomotion stands out, while they often struggle with social isolation. That was my takeaway from "The Lost Coin," a 2016 short by Mizuko Yamaoka, a filmmaker who has ...
Hirokazu Koreeda is best known for intimate family dramas that overseas critics often compare to the work of Yasujiro Ozu (1903-63), the genre's unquestioned master. Koreeda rejects these comparisons, however, and says he feels more of a cinematic kinship to Mikio Naruse (1905-69), one ...
Murder mysteries are popular film and television fodder in Japan, but most revolve around puzzle plots that hold as much real-world probability as the cases of Sherlock Holmes. Hirokazu Koreeda's "The Third Murder" also presents a puzzle, but it's in the form of twice-convicted killer ...
Almost everyone who comes to Tokyo via Narita International Airport notices the lush green fields surrounding the runways and terminal buildings. It's a nice sight after sitting on an airplane for so long. Some new arrivals get confused, however. "This can't be Tokyo," I once ...
At the 2010 Academy Awards, a film titled "The Cove" won the Oscar for best documentary. It was a proud moment for producers Fisher Stevens and Paula DuPre Pesmen, director Louie Psihoyos and activist Ric O'Barry, all of whom got on stage to accept ...
"The Shack" feels like a sugar-coated salve for wounds sustained from the flurry of recent news events. Directed by Stuart Hazeldine and starring Sam Worthington as a grieving dad, the big surprise in this religious fantasy story is the presence of Japanese actress Sumire ...
For a Japanese national, the question of why a person from the West would come to Japan is a fascinating one, so much so that there's even a TV show about it: "You wa Nani Shi ni Nihon E?" ("Why Did You Come to ...
Despite a career spanning nearly three decades, Yukiko Mishima hasn't appeared on many lists of up-and-coming Japanese female directors, mine included. One reason: She had a relatively late start, not releasing her first feature, a drama based on the Junichiro Tanizaki story "The Tatooer," ...
