Film May 22, 2020
Japanese movie distributors' survival plot takes online twist
Struggling to cope with the pandemic, some film distributors in Japan have been releasing material online. Cinema chains are not happy about the move.
Film Apr 17, 2019
Peaks, troughs and international awards: Japanese films in the Heisei Era
by Mark Schilling
The Heisei Era began in January 1989 and I started writing reviews of Japanese films for The Japan Times in July that year. In 1990, I became Japan correspondent for a British movie trade magazine, a job description that, with a change of publication, ...
National | AT A GLANCE Feb 3, 2015
Tokyo's Kamata area looks to revive its film industry
by Yoshiaki Miura
Only a 10-minute train ride from Haneda airport, the Kamata district in Ota Ward, Tokyo, has two faces: While known as home to small manufacturers that backed up Japan's postwar industrial rise, Kamata is also trying to revive a film industry that thrived there ...
Film Dec 3, 2014
Looking Japan's film-industry myths in the eye
by Mark Schilling
Who doesn't love a listicle titled "(X) surprising things you never knew about (Y)"? What surprises me about a lot of commentary on the Japanese film industry — from insiders and outsiders alike — is how it substitutes judgment calls (usually of the "Japanese ...
Film Sep 3, 2014
A quarter century of Japanese films in review
by Mark Schilling
In 25 years of reviewing Japanese films and interviewing Japanese filmmakers for this newspaper, I've written 1 million words, give or take a few. This is clearly something no normal person would do, but for me it beats working. The idea that writing about movies ...