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EDITORIALS
Dec 16, 2014

Getting under Pyongyang's skin

North Korea's rant against the impending release of the Sony Pictures satire 'The Interview' could have been predicted. Rather than providing the new film priceless PR, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un should have ignored the film as his father did with the 2004 satire 'Team America: World Police.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 26, 2014

'Kawaki (The World of Kanako)'

Some parents pride themselves on knowing their teenage children, and some parents truly don't have a clue. There is a fair amount of overlap between the two groups, especially when the teenagers try to please Mom and Dad while going their own sweet way.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 13, 2014

'Iya Monogatari: Oku no Hito (The Tale of Iya)'

Cycling in the mountains near Tokyo, I often have two thoughts: First, I feel sorry for big-city denizens missing all the natural beauty so near. Second, I wonder how the locals can wrest a living from their tiny fields and orchards, perched precariously on the slopes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 2, 2014

Our movie highlights of the coming year

Another year, another raft of unmissable movies. Here are the most hotly anticipated releases for JT film critics Mark Schilling, Kaori Shoji and Giovanni Fazio — get them in your diary now.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 28, 2013

Yamashita and Maeda reunite for slacker dramedy

Nobuhiro Yamashita has used a variety of sources for his films since his 1999 feature debut "Donten Seikatasu (Hazy Life)," including his own experiences as a struggling indie director. But the inspiration for his latest, "Moratorium Tamako (Tamako in Moratorium)," is out of the ordinary by any standard:...
CULTURE / Film
Sep 28, 2012

'The Bourne Legacy' / 'Haywire'

If going to the movies has taught me anything, it's that being a spy ain't easy. Even if the guy is a graduate of the School of Uber-spies, with perfect abs and hair streaming in the wind as the bad guys in black Mercedes come yelling in Euro accents. In fact, the more uber a spy is, the more tribulations...
Japan Times
CULTURE
Nov 18, 2011

Proud love pervades NHK's 'Madame Butterfly'

"Well, little Chrysanthème, let us part good friends; one last kiss even, if you like. I took you to amuse me; you have not perhaps succeeded very well, but after all you have done what you could: given me your little face, your little curtseys, your little music; in short, you have been pleasant enough...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 5, 2011

'Reikai no Tobira Sutorito Byu (Gate to Another World: Street View)' / '2channeru no Noroi Gekijoban (Curse of 2channel, The Movie)'

Every August, Japanese horror films appear in theaters here, cashing in on the traditional belief that chills from scary stories help beat the summer heat. And every August, critics lament that they don't match up to the products of J-horror's glory years — the late 1990s to early 2000s.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 29, 2010

How Japan embraced the advent of cinema

Japanese cinema was different from the very start. In the days of the silent movie, recitators called benshi, took it upon themselves not only to interpret the action, but to add their own vocal and acting embellishments as self-appointed supra-dramatists.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 16, 2010

'Inception'

Director Christopher Nolan has fashioned a career as neatly parceled into halves as that of Bruce Wayne/Batman: On the one side are his ontological thrillers, crafty mind games such as "Following," "Memento" and "The Prestige," with their shifting levels of reality and unreliable narrators. On the other...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 26, 2010

'Konchu Tantei Yoshida Yoshimi (Insect Detective yoshimi yoshida)'

A lot of kids go through a bug phase, when dragonflies, fireflies and butterflies seem absolutely fascinating. But the Japanese carry bug love to heights unknown to the underage ant farmers of my native Ohio, a love that puzzled me when I first came here, since about the only bugs I normally encountered...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 12, 2010

Yazaki opens up about 'Lies'

A leader of Japanese cinema's 1990s New Wave, Hitoshi Yazaki dropped off the radar for more than a decade, returning in 2006 with "Strawberry Shortcakes," a widely praised drama about four lonely women in search of, not just a partner, but reasons for living. In his new film, "Sweet Little Lies," the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 13, 2009

'Zero no Shoten'

Mystery writer Seicho Matsumoto (1909-1992) was long to the Japanese entertainment industry what Stephen King has been to Hollywood — a one-man fiction factory who supplied material for dozens of films and TV dramas.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 9, 2009

'Villon no Tsuma'/'Pandora no Hako'

Kichitaro Negishi's "Villon no Tsuma" ("Villon's Wife") is based on an Osamu Dazai short story with autobiographical overtones: An alcoholic writer steals a large sum of money from a small drinking establishment and, when he does a disappearing act, his wife offers to pay it back by working for the owners...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Apr 5, 2009

Porn actresses pick up prizes

You've come a long way, baby, and in such a short time.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 3, 2008

'Achilles to Kame'

Zeno's paradoxes are ancient mind games that undermine common-sense assumptions about reality. In the most famous, "Achilles and the Tortoise," a fast runner and a tortoise start at the same time toward the same goal, the tortoise with a head start — say it must cover 10 meters while the runner must...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 20, 2008

'The Magic Hour'

Koki Mitani is the reigning king of comedy in Japan, as the writer and sometimes director of a string of hit stage plays, TV series and three feature films that culminated in 2006 with "The Uchoten Hotel (Suite Dream)." This laugh-packed take-off on the 1932 Greta Garbo classic "Grand Hotel," based on...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 29, 2008

Cannes: sobriety and great excess

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 23, 2008

'After School'

In 2005, Kenji Uchida, then an unknown young director, won four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival for his second feature, "Unmei Ja Nai Hito (A Stranger of Mine)."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 4, 2007

The camera and the truth

With his fake documentary purporting to show serving President George W. Bush's assassination, director Gabriel Range has made this year's most controversial movie
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 1, 2007

Kotaro Sawaki: Writer on the road of life

Kotaro Sawaki is one of the most popular nonfiction writers in Japan. He made his name with "Shinya Tokkyu (Midnight Express)," a reportage of a yearlong overland trip through Asia and Europe he took when he was in his mid-20s. Those stories — whose title refers to a euphemism for "prison break" used...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 15, 2007

'Zukan ni Notte Nai Mushi'

We all need to escape, once in a while, from being serious people in the real world, trying to ace the big test, land the big contract, or earn an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Rinko Kikuchi, who accomplished the last feat for her turn as a hearing-impaired high-school girl in "Babel,"...
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2001

Lost and found in a dream

Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) Rating: * * * * * Director: Hayao Miyazaki Running time: 125 minutes Language: JapaneseNow showing Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli animators had their biggest-ever triumph with "Mononoke Hime (The Princess Mononoke)," an eco-fable set in premodern...
CULTURE / Film
Jun 27, 2001

Lang enters the sophomore class

It comes as no surprise to hear that the most inspiring film in Samantha Lang's life was "Hiroshima, Mon Amour." "I saw it when I was 16 and must have watched it at least 10 times," says Lang. "I know that film shot by shot, line by line." Echoes of that film's free-spirited and independent heroine,...
CULTURE / Film
Feb 6, 2001

Trauma in a sepia-tinged Kyushu

It's not easy filming the inner lives of human beings. Novelists can go on at length about their protagonist's stream of consciousness (see "Ulysses") while filmmakers cannot show scene after voiced-over scene of that same stream without inducing audience catatonia. See Joseph Strick's misbegotten 1967...
LIFE / Digital
Jan 17, 2001

The Library of Congress streams

www.loc.gov This short URL brings you to a rather unremarkable home page, that of the U.S. Library of Congress. Click behind the facade and you're on an elegant bridge to America's past. There's no map, but don't worry. You want to get lost among the millions of pieces on display -- manuscripts, streaming...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 18, 2023

Hirokazu Kore-eda angles for second Cannes win with 'Monster'

The director's latest drama received a six-minute standing ovation at its world premiere. The film is Kore-eda's second in competition since 'Shoplifers' won the top prize in 2015.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Mar 14, 2018

The Japanese lessons of a 'plastic Paddy'

A Briton of Irish stock finds the 'Irishness' he seeks not on the Emerald Isle itself but in the expat pubs of his adopted land.

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