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July 16, 2025
 

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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Oct 10, 2019

Quality high at Short Shorts autumn screening event

Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia holds its autumn screening event in Tokyo from Oct. 17 to 20, with 25 films being shown across a number of programs
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 3, 2016

Takumi Saitoh: Growing up with film

As a former model and in-demand actor, it's no surprise that Takumi Saitoh has a sizeable fan base. A Google image search of the Tokyo native produces a large number of photos in which his smoldering gaze locks eyes with the viewer.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 23, 2014

'Chiisai Ouchi (The Little House)'

Several veterans of Japan's old studio system are still working, but Yoji Yamada is the only one still directing for the studio he started out with, back in 1954. He has directed 81 films for Shochiku; his extraordinary box-office success with the "Tora-san" series, 48 films from 1969 to 1995 about the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 19, 2012

Tokyo International Film Festival hits 25

This year, Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) celebrates its 25th edition and will hold commemorative programs, including a three-day screening of six Japanese films from the Showa Era (1926-89) in the very Showa-esque district of Nihonbashi.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 15, 2011

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2'

As we approach the eighth and final installment in the "Harry Potter" series, what can I say? You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind's blowing. The fans are already getting their tickets, while the less-committed have long since departed, especially since director David Yates has pretty...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 14, 2011

'Yoyochu: Sex to Yoyogi Tadashi no Sekai (Yoyochu in the Land of the Rising Sex)'

Japan's sex industry is huge, diverse and different. One oddity, at least to Western eyes, is the pinku eiga (pink film), a genre of soft porn made according to certain rules (the most important being the inclusion of a simulated sex scene every 10 minutes or so) and shown in specialized theaters. Pink...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 21, 2010

'Haru tono tabi (Travels with Haru)'

Masahiro Kobayashi is a unique figure in the Japanese film business. His knotty, idiosyncratic films, starting with the 1996 film "Closing Time," have never made much at the box office in Japan, though they have become favorites of foreign festival programmers. Four have screened at Cannes, including...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 23, 2009

'Kansen Retto'

Disaster movies became big in both Hollywood and Japan in the 1970s — an era of soaring gas prices, volatile exchange rates and a failed Republican presidency. Now, with history repeating itself (in spades), this much-derided genre is booming again.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 6, 2008

Festival explores artistic side of Thai cinema

The realm of Thai cinema goes well beyond martial arts movies such as "Ong-bak" (titled "Mach!" in Japan), which was a hit here in 2004. Movie fans in Japan unfortunately rarely ever get a chance to experience much else from Thailand's vibrant film industry, which has more to offer that is surprisingly...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Feb 5, 2018

Looking at what the world likes about Japan

Google Trends has released its search data on Japan for 2017 and topping several lists was the name Mao Kobayashi (u5c0fu6797u9ebbu592e).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Nov 17, 2021

‘Red Notice’ is a hit? Oh, yes, says Netflix’s Top 10 list

'Top 10 on Netflix” will reveal the streaming platform's most popular content — a ranking that includes its own original content, as well as the movies and TV shows it has licensed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 14, 2021

Director Akio Fujimoto pushes for more diversity in Japanese film

When Akio Fujimoto cast three Vietnamese actresses in a movie about the Vietnamese experience, he was actually doing something rather rare in the Japanese film industry.
CULTURE / Film / Heisei Icons,Heisei Icons
Apr 19, 2019

Hayao Miyazaki: Universally acclaimed weaver of unforgettable anime worlds

Animators and live-action filmmakers around the world acknowledge his influence. His talents have even been described by fans as “godlike.”
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 19, 2013

Ishikawa knows when to throw away the script

Japanese directors of TV dramas often make films that are basically big-screen versions of small-screen shows. No surprise, since their TV-network backers want product that will work equally well with multiplex audiences and home viewers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2013

Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson is one of those directors who, love him or hate him, has been remarkably consistent. Each film, from "Rushmore" right on down, is an artfully constructed and totally hermetic world unto itself, with flawed or absent father-figures, a closet's worth of funky-yet-chic pop-culture knickknacks...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 12, 2012

Filmmaker savors being in situation where threat of the unknown looms

A surfboard mounted against a sea of sludge, whimsically defiant to the ruinous tide of debris. It's the kind of quirky beauty you might expect from Michael Arias, an American filmmaker based in Tokyo. Arias' creative work, in film through to his recent photographs of Tohoku, all paint with the same...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 8, 2011

'Bal'

As Hollywood films become ever more breathless — with special effects sidelining nearly all plot and character development, and digital-editing abuse leading to few shots that last beyond a second — art cinema has moved just as extremely in the opposite direction, with slow, meticulous pacing; long,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 9, 2010

'Surely Someday'

The seishun eiga (youth movie) is an important, long-established genre in Japanese films with no exact parallel in the West. The difference is not the theme as such — films about teenagers are hardly rare in Hollywood — but rather their numbers and angle of approach. The Japanese industry produces...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 25, 2009

'Air Doll'

Hirokazu Kore'eda is the most internationally acclaimed Japanese director of his generation, whose films are regularly invited to major world festivals and receive the sort of respectful attention from foreign scholars and critics usually accorded only to dead Golden Age masters.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 20, 2007

Watching them watching us

A s many non-Japanese are well aware, today is "G Day," or "F Day," or whatever cute name you'd like to assign to it: The day that the government begins fingerprinting virtually all foreigners — or "gaijin," or more appropriately "gaikokujin" — entering Japan. And those of us who will be subjected...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 8, 2004

Dark clouds over Japan

Lady Joker Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Hideyuki Hirayama Running time: 121 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Why do films about salarymen tend to be either heavy-footed, with the principals rarely cracking a smile or otherwise dispelling...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 22, 2022

They loved volcanoes and each other

A new documentary examines the work and lives of the French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, helped mightily by their own magnificent footage.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 21, 2020

Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia lineup delivers despite COVID-19

Other than delaying the festival from its usual June starting date, things are on track for the event, which will screen more than 200 films at venues around Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jul 10, 2018

'Akira' inspires generations of foreign animators

Enthusiasts pour their souls into labors of love honoring Otomo's classic anime film and manga series.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 12, 2015

Love blooms like incendiary bombs in 'Kono Kuni no Sora'

Veteran scriptwriter Haruhiko Arai spent three decades trying to adapt Yuichi Takai's 1983 novel "Kono Kuni no Sora" ("This Country's Sky") for the screen — and the wait was worth it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 11, 2014

Armies ready for battle in final 'Hobbit' film

There's a scene in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Volume 2" where Michael Madsen's Budd character asks Daryl Hannah's Elle: "Now you ain't gonna hafta face your enemy on the battlefield no more, which 'R' are you filled with: relief or regret?"
CULTURE / Film
Jul 23, 2014

New Directors From Japan

Directors: Nagisa Isogai, Hirobumi Watanabe, Kosuke TakayaLanguage: Japanese (subtitled in English)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 16, 2014

Reflections on the dark side of a tropical island

Naomi Kawase was once Japan's best-known female director abroad; now she is one of its most internationally prominent directors, regardless of gender.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 9, 2014

Asia's myriad film genres celebrated at Udine festival

Why go to a film festival that specializes in the sort of popular Asian genres — from Hong Kong actioners to South Korean comedies — that the other "better" sort of festivals have traditionally sniffed at?
Students in Japan struggle with Japanese language and math sections on national exam
The correct answer rate for the Japanese language section on a national test dropped to 67.0% from 67.8% the previous year among elementary school sixth-graders.
Japan team finds ancient ocean full of squids
The ancient ocean was full of squids, whose population exceeded that of fish or ammonites, a Japanese research team mainly from Hokkaido University has found through a new method using technology.
Japan researchers identify gut bacteria strain that boosts anticancer drugs
Researchers at the National Cancer Center Japan say a new type of gut bacteria named YB328 could help unlock the potential of cancer immunotherapy.
Tourists in Japan have telemedicine options before calling 119
Foreign tourists at Tsukiji Outer Market in Tokyo. More than 1 million international visitors have a medical issue in Japan every year.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan
After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
With China and Trump, Japan defense report says world entering ‘new era of crisis’
A senior member of a Self-Defense Forces honor guard inspects a formation before the arrival of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for a visit to the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on June 30.
Tokyo stocks hit by a perfect storm of tariffs, politics and budget worries
Tokyo stocks are underperforming shares in other large markets globally.
Japan researchers identify gut bacteria strain that boosts anticancer drugs
Researchers at the National Cancer Center Japan say a new type of gut bacteria named YB328 could help unlock the potential of cancer immunotherapy.
Tokyobike founder believes in taking in sights of dynamic cities slowly
Ichiro Kanai, founder and president of Tokyobike, is developing a niche but a new customer base who want to cycle as part of a lifestyle.
Music idol and anime fandom merch is big business
Businesses who cater to fandoms gathered at Tokyo Lifestyle Week for the second annual Oshikatsu — Merch Collection Expo, a trade show devoted to fandom goods.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan
By Megha Wadhwa

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027
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