
Film Oct 20, 2020
Japanese cinema must adapt to survive, warns rising-star director
by Mathias Cena
Koji Fukada says original ideas in the country's industry are lacking, and that art house cinema is in need of a financial boost.
Japanese cinema must adapt to survive, warns rising-star director
Koji Fukada says original ideas in the country's industry are lacking, and that art house cinema is in need of a financial boost.
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.
Peaks, troughs and international awards: Japanese films in the Heisei Era
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, ...
Tokyo's Kamata area looks to revive its film industry
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 ...
Looking Japan's film-industry myths in the eye
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 ...
A quarter century of Japanese films in review
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 ...