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CULTURE / Film
Aug 8, 2001

Eyes wide open

French auteurs rediscover the human condition French cinema has long been identified with auteur filmmaking of a certain kind. While the idea of a highly personal cinema shaped by obsessions and concerns of the director is a good one, for too long this has been used to justify overly intellectualized,...
CULTURE / Film
May 9, 2001

Crowd-pleasing in Udine

Given the media frenzy over "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," Western interest in Asian cinema may be news, but it's hardly new. Back in 1998, the organizers of Udine Incontri Cinema, a small film festival in a quiet Italian town near the Austrian and Slovenian border, shifted their focus to commercial...
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2000

Violent movie opens despite protest

A controversial Japanese movie that features a series of fights to the death between junior high school students opened Saturday at cinemas nationwide.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 10, 2000

Filmmaker lights a fire under corruption

Well known for kaiju (monster) films populated by giant luminaries such as Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan, Toho Inc. now brings us "Cross Fire," an sf thriller about a pyrokinetic office lady at odds with Japanese corruption. Adapted from a novel by best-selling author Miyuki Miyabe, the movie is directed...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Mar 29, 2000

Get Shorty

For many of us living in Japan, the Academy Awards ceremony serves as a reminder of where we are in the bigger scheme of things: behind the curve. We often haven't seen many of the nominated or winning films, some won't be here for another year, and others might not come at all. This is a distribution...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 16, 2000

The essence of Japanese film

FROM BOOK TO SCREEN: Modern Japanese Literature in Film. By Keiko I. McDonald. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 326 pp., with b/w photos. $62.95 (cloth); $25.95 (paper) Keiko McDonald's 1994 "Japanese Classical Theater in Films" (Associated University Presses) has become an indispensable text. Anyone...
JAPAN
Sep 22, 1998

Namikiza theater shows its last film

The Namikiza theater in Tokyo's Ginza district closed its doors on nearly 45 years of film history Tuesday.
JAPAN
Sep 7, 1998

Kurosawa to receive special award

Film director Akira Kurosawa, who died Sunday, will posthumously receive the People's Honor Award in recognition of his lifetime work, the top government spokesman said Monday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 11, 2022

'By the Window' offers a cinematic lesson in taking your time

Director Rikiya Imaizumi throws convention aside to focus on complex characters that audiences can relate to in his new film, which won the Audience Award at the recent Tokyo International Film Festival.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 4, 2022

Foreign films, English titles and the dilemma distributors face

Leave as is? Translate? Change altogether? A movie's success doesn't depend entirely on what we call it, but it can have a big effect.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 7, 2022

‘Believers’ is explicit but has nothing to say

Hideo Jojo's cult caper is a kinky, flimsy throwback to the turn of the millennium when the Japanese public was still reeling from attacks by the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 3, 2022

Seven to see at this year’s Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia

The short film festival celebrates the briefest of screen gems. Festival winners not only get the respect of their peers but a shot at an Oscar as well.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 30, 2021

How Hans Zimmer conjured the otherworldly sounds of ‘Dune’

Composer Hans Zimmer worked with a far-flung “band” of collaborators who sung, scraped metal, invented instruments and more for the epic sci-fi film's score.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 12, 2021

‘It’s a Flickering Life’: A heartfelt ode to golden oldies spread thin

Veteran filmmaker Yoji Yamada's tribute to the film industry and the audiences who are keeping it alive is well-meaning but doesn't quite hit its mark.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 12, 2021

‘It's a Summer Film’: Movie worship with a time travel twist

Soushi Matsumoto dips into various genres with his feature debut about a teenage aspiring director who unknowingly casts a time-traveling fan of her work as the lead in her first film.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 12, 2021

Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia delivers more than A-list talent

Since its start in 1999, Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia (SSFF & Asia) has become the largest festival of its kind in Asia. This year, it is presenting a hybrid edition, with online venues showing films beginning on April 27 and the festival proper held June 11-21 at venues across Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 3, 2021

Is change sweeping the sclerotic Japanese film industry?

The Japan Academy awarded top honors to the LGBTQ-themed drama “Midnight Swan” and its star, and Tokyo International Film Festival announced that its 34th edition would see more diversity.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 27, 2021

Corporate selloffs reflect tough times in Japan amid pandemic

Leading Japanese companies are considering selling off prestigious headquarters in central Tokyo as COVID-19 continues to reshape business operations.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 24, 2021

Asia’s movie rebound is good news for everyone

In the absence of Hollywood fare, 'The Eight Hundred,” a Chinese war epic, became the world's top-grossing movie with a $460 million take.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 20, 2021

‘I Fell in Love Like a Flower Bouquet’: Millennial romance with a Gen X heart

Kasumi Arimura and Masaki Suda star in an entertaining but inauthentic portrait of 2010s romance, penned by veteran TV screenwriter Yuji Sakamoto.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 24, 2020

Minamata disease victims struggle to find closure

More than 60 years after first raising awareness about a neurological disease caused by industrial mercury poisoning, photojournalist Aileen M. Smith still wants answers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 22, 2020

Veteran Koji Yakusho brings his movie star clout to the Tokyo International Film Festival

This year's TIFF ambassador discusses the festival experience, the effects of COVID-19 on the film industry, and discovering his inner Marie Kondo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 17, 2020

‘The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese’: Looking for love in the wrong places

Isao Yukisada's gay romance offers refreshing scenes of domestic intimacy, but can't resolve the underlying problems of its manga source material.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 20, 2020

Never forget the struggles of conflict with these Japanese World War II films

Filmmakers are able to record the feelings of history in ways that you can't get from textbooks at school.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 22, 2020

Torel-produced films show just why Japanese indies need support

With theu00a0closures of small theaters threatening the survival of the indie scene, many in the industry have looked to online streaming to stay afloat.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 14, 2020

Asia-themed film festivals migrate online amid COVID-19

Overseas film festivals that specialize in Japanese and other Asian fare are taking their programs online to survive the coronavirus.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 23, 2020

'Zero': Practicing kindness in life and in love

In Japan, people with mental illnesses have long been stigmatized, marginalized and isolated from broader society. In 2009, documentary filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda released “Mental,” a film about Masatomo Yamamoto, an elderly psychiatrist in Okayama Prefecture who respected his patients as individuals...
CULTURE / Film
Apr 16, 2020

The race to save Japan's independent cinemas

As Japan's film industry feels the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, campaigners take to crowdfunding to help save smaller cinemas.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 13, 2020

How the Japanese film industry is coping with the COVID-19 crisis

From cinema closures to business as usual, the film industry in Japan is employing its own methods to keep people safe and still watching films across the country.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes