Film

"Bohemian Rhapsody," a biographical film about the legendary British rock band Queen, is captivating the hearts of young and old alike in Japan, where in the 1970s the band saw success before anywhere else. The film, released in Japan on Nov. 9, grossed more than ...

The films of Sabu — the pseudonym of actor-turned-director Hiroyuki Tanaka — are typically about guys on the move, be it as a troubled soul on a journey ("Blessing Bell") or a crook on the run ("Unlucky Monkey"). The object is usually laughs, though ...

At a time when many aspiring Japanese filmmakers spend years working on other people's movies before having a chance to make one of their own, getting your first feature into cinemas at the age of 22 is no small achievement. Writer-director Aya Igashi was already ...

Screening in competition at this year's Venice Film Festival, "Killing" is veteran provocateur Shinya Tsukamoto's first venture into the samurai genre. Made, like most of Tsukamoto's films, on a tiny budget and tight schedule, it does not attempt the scale of classics like "Seven ...

From the get-go, "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" makes it clear that the new installment of J.K. Rowling's "Fantastic Beasts" franchise will be gloomier and heavier than the first film, a playful romp set in New York during the age of jazz. Katherine Waterston, ...

Quick: what's a good spell against boredom? After getting off to a nimble start with "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" in 2016, J.K. Rowling's five-part prequel to the "Harry Potter" series is already starting to feel like an almighty slog. While its ...

Heist movies play to everyone's dream of easy money, earned by criminal smarts and daring. But a convention of the genre, going back to Stanley Kubrick's 1956 film "The Killing" and beyond, is that the big score is also a big trap for the ...

The Japanese film industry may be the second-biggest in Asia, but to Hollywood it is still an island unto itself, its inner workings little understood. And the knowledge gap goes the both ways too; Japanese filmmakers may mine Hollywood for ideas and inspiration, but ...

Live-action manga adaptations — from weepy dramas about teenage love to goofy comedies set in fantasy worlds — usually reflect real life only at its extremes, whether it's the melodramatic or the idiotic. Then there is "Hard-Core Heisei Hell's Bros.," a cult manga about two ...

Emilio Insolera's "Sign Gene" gave the world its first deaf superheroes. But after writing, directing, producing and starring in the film himself, you might argue that Insolera is the one with the superpowers. And the filmmaker says he can thank a stint in Japan for ...

Every year people from the film industry — buyers, programmers and critics — descend on the Tokyo International Film Festival to see what this country has to offer, and every year they usually find at least one gem among the selections in the Japanese ...