Tag - arata-iura

 
 

ARATA IURA

A former pop idol (Mai Fukagawa) finds herself in a slump with little money, no partner and precarious mental health as she nears her 30s in “Tsundol.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 2, 2023
‘Tsundol’: Pop idol on the brink gets mental health uplift
While it is a predictable drama about a former singer getting her life together, the film addresses her mental well-being in a refreshing manner.
A woman (Yoko Maki) haunted by the trauma of her husband’s unexplained disappearance hires a detective to find answers in Rikiya Imaizumi’s “Undercurrent.”
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2023
‘Undercurrent’: All is not lost in cathartic drama
Yoko Maki and Arata Iura deliver committed performances in Rikiya Imaizumi’s introspective film about people who vanish for inexplicable reasons.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 14, 2022
‘Phoenix Goes On’: Buddy road trip offers fun hijinks
Arata Iura and Ryo Narita play off each other well as two friends on a bizarre quest in the follow-up to Kanata Wolf's 2018 film “Smokin' on the Moon.”
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2021
‘Skeleton Flowers’: A quiet drama of honesty and growth
In Rikiya Imaizumi's latest film, newcomer Sara Shida gives a centered performance as an artsy teen coming to terms with her father's new relationship and her mother's reappearance.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2020
‘True Mothers’: An intimate look at two sides of adoption
Naomi Kawase's drama tackles child adoption and teenage pregnancy with seriousness and compassion, while drawing a stand-out performance from Aju Makita.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 16, 2020
In ‘True Mothers,’ Naomi Kawase examines what makes a family
Naomi Kawase draws on personal experience in her new film, an intimate look at adoption that blurs the line between documentary and fiction.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Oct 3, 2018
'Dare to Stop Us': Japanese cinema's bad boy as seen by one of the women who worked with him
In the 1960s Koji Wakamatsu was Japanese cinema's enfant terrible: A real-life outlaw — he once joined a yakuza gang and served time in prison — he made pioneering "pink" (softcore porn) films such as "The Embryo Hunts in Secret" (1966) and "Go, Go, Second Time Virgin" (1969), whose extreme sex and violence, filmed with raw energy and wild invention, gave censors and industry guardians conniption fits.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 29, 2017
'And Then There Was Light': Moments of beauty engulfed in miserabilism
Tatsushi Omori's films have been pushing boundaries since his 2005 debut "The Whispering of the Gods," with its story of a young murderer's return to a Christian community presided over by the priest who abused him as a child.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 15, 2015
Adaptation of Banana Yoshimoto's 'Asleep' is heavy with depression and Eros
Sleep is the great restorer, one we frazzled moderns eternally need, desire and lack. But for Terako (Sakura Ando), the sleepy-eyed heroine of photographer and director Shingo Wakagi's "Shirakawa Yofune" ("Asleep"), the bedroom is a battleground of the spirit.

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces