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July 22, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY / World
Sep 14, 2011

More than a little help from Gadhafi's Western friends

With Col. Moammar Gadhafi's regime in ruins and Gadhafi himself on the run, it is time to ponder just how he survived in power for so long. Greed for markets and money, it seems, often trumped the West's supposed concern for basic human rights.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 8, 2011

Japan and America share their acting skills

Next year will mark the New York premiere performances of a new collaborative project whose organizers hope will spur a revolution in the film and theater industries of Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 2, 2011

Kyoko Kagawa retrospective looks back at Japan's golden age of cinema

Actress Kyoko Kagawa has starred in some of Japan's most successful films, over an impressive acting career that has spanned more than 60 years. She was the First Lady during the so-called golden age of the Japanese film industry in the 1950s and '60s, appearing in such classics as 1953's "Tokyo Monogatari...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 26, 2011

Life from a global perspective, and into the past

It may not be a cinematic masterpiece, but "Life in a Day" is a prophetic example of where film may be headed. Everything that has surrounded and defined the film industry — studios, locations, directors, casts and theaters — all of these are condensed into two letters: PC. Flip open a laptop and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 19, 2011

Pitt, Penn heap praise on Malick's 'real world'

Terrence Malick kicks off his new film, "The Tree of Life," with a bang. The Big Bang, actually. Over the next 138 minutes, the viewer witnesses a journey through history that ends up in a small town in Texas. Critics seem to agree that you'll either love it or hate it.
JAPAN / History
Aug 14, 2011

Film mines rich seams of history

Hiroko Kumagai will never forget the day in 1998 when she first stepped inside the red-brick building at the entrance to the closed and shuttered Miyahara shaft in the Miike coal mine in Omuta, Fukuoka Prefecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 22, 2011

Very different approaches to the struggling hero theme

James Gunn wrote the screenplay for 2000's "The Specials," a low-budget indie comedy that mocked superheroes, showing them kicking back, whining about their action figure deals or bloviating about their origin stories, but never once engaging in actual crime-fighting.
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
Jul 8, 2011

Asia's gay film scene opens Tokyo up to brave new experiences

Now in its fourth year, the Asian Queer Film Festival is an eye-opener for anyone who has thought that "queers" have a bad time in their quest for love and freedom in Asia.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 24, 2011

Director Ishii brings style to family drama

Japanese directors with any kind of ambition usually end up making a family drama, which is to Japanese cinema what the Western used to be to Hollywood: the core national genre.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 17, 2011

Tokyo and Yokohama festival celebrates the art of brevity

Short films have traditionally been seen as a director's starting block toward making their first feature. Yet with the art of filmmaking becoming ever cheaper, many have been sidestepping the short-film format, instead heading straight for a low-budget feature film. Yet short films are an art form in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 17, 2011

'13'

Being thrown in a cramped, damp room full of extremely muscular men may sound like an ideal way to spend an evening, but take it from me: There are issues. The air's so coated with testosterone it's hard to breathe, the conversation is far, far from anything resembling romantic and, worst of all, these...
Reader Mail
May 22, 2011

Unforgettable celluloid memories

The Observer book review of Philip French's "I Found It at the Movies" (which ran in The Japan Times on May 8 under the headline "Confessions of a movie maniac") reminded me that I used to watch five movies a week so that I could write reviews for The Film Buff, which was read by the famous San Francisco...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
May 15, 2011

Japan's renegade hero gives Saipan new hope

Graciano Lisua doesn't look like someone who would get too worked up about ghosts. Yet superstition, says the broad-shouldered, barrel-chested Chomorron as he leans on his machete, is of great import for the inhabitants of the Mariana Islands.
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
May 6, 2011

Merchandise boosts 'K-On!' movie sales

Fans of the popular anime 'K-On!' prove their loyalty by snapping up extra movie tickets just to get limited-edition collectibles.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 22, 2011

'Mary and Max'

There's just no other way to describe "Mary and Max," the eccentric clay-animation tour de force by Australian director Adam Elliot, than as "black humor." What else can you a call a film where the best jokes involve a plummeting air conditioner and the head of a street mime, or a goldfish and an electric...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 15, 2011

'Sucker Punch'

I've never thought of director Zack Snyder ("300", "Watchmen") as an experimental filmmaker, but his latest, "Sucker Punch" (Japan title: "Angel Wars"), seems like some sort of conceptual art prank. The experiment seems to have been as follows: Send some staff to San Diego's Comic-Con, survey 100 random...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 8, 2011

'The Killer Inside Me'

If you like your film noir darker than a Texas outhouse on a new moon in June, and if you don't mind being shocked — and I mean really shocked — then here's your film: "The Killer Inside Me," director Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of the cult noir novel from 1952 by that most hard-boiled of authors,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 8, 2011

'Mama Bush' puts black women in a powerful light

Based in New York, Mickalene Thomas is known for mixed-media paintings, photographic collages and videos that explore representations of beauty in art history and pop culture through images of African-American women.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 1, 2011

'Fantastic Mr. Fox'

Wes Anderson, a director known for the laconic preppie chic of "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic," turns his hand to animation with "Fantastic Mr. Fox," an adaptation of an idiosyncratic children's tale by Roald Dahl. Cinema has been kind to Dahl, with inspired adaptations by Henry Selick...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 25, 2011

'The Illusionist'

"The Illusionist," Sylvain Chomet's sentimental animated film about a fading vaudeville magician and the young runaway who comes under his wing, is a parable worth viewing, especially in these troubled times. For while it is a film about magic and the illusion that tricks can create, before the curtain...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2011

Corruption tarnishes shiny India

HONG KONG — Corruption in India has become so public and pervasive that the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been forced to take action on two blatant abuses. The problem is that corruption is only one highly visible part of a hydra-headed monster that is preventing India from fulfilling...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 4, 2011

Kuriyama trades her blades for a song

She's died on screen almost as many times as she's killed. Western movie fans will know her as Gogo Yubari, the spiked-ball-and-chain-wielding schoolgirl who disembowels men for fun before crying tears of blood in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 1." In Japan, she's been an actress since the age...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 18, 2011

'Hereafter'

Life is short, death eternal, and Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter" lies somewhere in between. The film starts off with a bang — a tsunami hitting a Thai resort town, a psychic contacting the dead in San Francisco, and a street mugging turning into accidental death on a tough London street. It then moves...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Feb 6, 2011

Yang Sok Gil: Writing about wrongs at home and abroad

Yang Sok Gil is renowned for his novels describing, with remarkable humanity and humor, people's wanton desires and the problems they cause, often from the viewpoint of minorities in Japan or elsewhere.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 4, 2011

'The King's Speech'

The Prime Minister (ours) is on Twitter. That's basically a so-what situation given the present digital (and alas, political) climate, but a mere five or so decades ago, people in public office were much more selective about their methods of exposure. In fact, some of them had a definite aversion to...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 4, 2011

'Teenage Paparazzo'

A drian Grenier was an actor with a long resume of bit parts before he landed the role of Hollywood actor Vince in the HBO series "Entourage," which launched him to stardom. Apparently not lacking a sense of irony, Grenier was bemused to find that having played a celebrity of whom everyone wanted a piece...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 14, 2011

'Soul Kitchen'

German-born Turkish filmmaker Fatih Akin has made a rapid climb up the ladder of cinema success: three major award wins in six short years including "Head On" (2004) and the dark, soulful "Edge of Heaven" (2007). Issues of immigration, ethnic diversity and the conflicts that rise from Eastern tradition...
Japan ruling bloc loses majority in Upper House after election drubbing
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who serves concurrently as president of the Liberal Democratic Party, leaves at the party's headquarters following announcement of Upper House election result projections in Tokyo early Monday.
‘Japanese First’ Sanseito emerges as powerful force after Upper House poll
Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya in Tokyo on Sunday night
Foreign residents closely follow Japan's election and party pledges
A police officer walks past posters of Liberal Democratic Party candidates, as well as one showing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, outside the party's headquarters in Tokyo on Sunday. As Japan’s foreign population continues to rise, one of the talking points during Sunday’s election was how the country should deal with the increase of international residents.
Japan’s top brands get tied up in the great sunscreen debate
A coral reef in Okinawa in July 2022. Some jurisdictions around the world have moved to ban certain sunscreens in a bid to protect coral reefs, but some say the impact on reefs is far from clear.
Hitomi Obara, 2012 Olympic champion in wrestling, dies at 44
Hitomi Obara competes at the London Olympics in August 2012.
Japan’s top brands get tied up in the great sunscreen debate
A coral reef in Okinawa in July 2022. Some jurisdictions around the world have moved to ban certain sunscreens in a bid to protect coral reefs, but some say the impact on reefs is far from clear.
Pentagon looks to unleash ‘military drone dominance’
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth hosts a drone demonstration at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on July 10.
‘Noto Democracy’ and the slow work of civic change
Yukio Iokibe’s “Noto Democracy" centers on Motoyuki Takii, a former junior high school teacher who publishes a handwritten newspaper every month to encourage the residents of Anamizu, Ishikawa Prefecture, to engage in local politics.
In microbes we trust: Embracing the nature of fermented food
You don't need an oven to make Kenji Morimoto's easy and delicious Miso Sticky Toffee Crepe Cake.
Touring the Silk Road — without leaving Tokyo
One of the entrances to Pao Compound, a nine-story Silk Road-inspired complex in Tokyo's Higashinakano neighborhood

Podcast

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

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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