Tag - film

 
 

FILM

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 29, 2015
'Obon no Ototo' is one director's attempt to portray his real life through a fictional self
'Life imitates art far more than art imitates life," quipped Oscar Wilde, but in the film world mining one's own life for the sake of art — or rather, a script — is an ancient and hallowed practice. The resulting film, however, may have only a tenuous relationship with the filmmaker's actual biography....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jul 29, 2015
Tokyo International Film Festival promises a more diverse selection this year
Second-guessing the programming of the annual Tokyo International Film Festival is a favorite sport of movie types in Japan — I've been doing it myself for years.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 26, 2015
How Sony sanitized films to please China's censors
In a 2013 script for the movie "Pixels," intergalactic aliens blast a hole in one of China's national treasures — the Great Wall.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 29, 2015
Beijing hits Manila over sea dispute film Beijing rips Manila over South China Sea documentary
China accused the Philippines of spreading misinformation and "creating the illusion of the victim" in their dispute over the South China Sea on Monday after Manila aired a three-part documentary defending its position.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jun 10, 2015
Where to find Japanese films screening in Tokyo with English subtitles
When I first started watching Japanese films at cinemas in Tokyo nearly three decades ago, screenings with English subtitles were nonexistent. I spent a month with my Japanese teacher at the time studying the script of Akira Kurosawa's "Kagemusha"("The Shadow Warrior") so I could puzzle out its feudal-era...
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 4, 2015
Success of Doraemon film in China reflects thaw in ties with Japan: expert
The success of a Japanese animation film recently released in China reflects a thaw in relations between the two nations as Beijing opens up to cultural exchanges, according to a Japan-based expert on the communist country.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Jun 3, 2015
Festival of off-center European films comes to Tokyo and Kyoto
One of the main goals of a film festival is to show movies that audiences won't get to see otherwise. For the festival operators there's another objective: testing reactions to films and stories, and using that information for marketing purposes. And with the number of film festivals being held in Japan...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jun 3, 2015
Eddie Redmayne to star in 'Harry Potter' spinoff
Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne will enter the world of magic in Warner Bros.' anticipated "Harry Potter" spinoff movie "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," the studio said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
May 27, 2015
Could Kiyoshi Kurosawa's win at Cannes change Japan's luck?
Kiyoshi Kurosawa won the best director prize in the Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard section on Sunday, but he also deserves a prize from the Japanese film industry for single-handedly turning its presence at the world's most prestigious film festival from a vague embarrassment to a cause for...
CULTURE / Film
May 21, 2015
The must-see list is long at Short Shorts film fest
When it comes to getting a movie fix these days, more people opt for their computer screens than venturing outside to a theater. Hollywood has countered this trend with a slew of 3-D blockbusters and cinematic largesse, but how does the short film fare?
CULTURE / Film
May 21, 2015
Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia searches for that 1-in-5,000 movie
Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia director Seigo Tono has been with the event since its second edition in 2000, when it was called the American Short Shorts Film Festival and showed only U.S. films. Since then it has evolved into what Tono describes as "a global event, featuring cutting-edge shorts from...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
May 17, 2015
Black filmmakers 'find their edge' in Japan
This month's green-tinged Black Eye focuses on black filmmakers in Tokyo — a group of brothers forging their dreams into reality, getting it done here in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 13, 2015
'Ao no Ran' is a riproaring rhapsody in blue
"Ao no Ran" is the latest in the popular Geki×Cine series. To cut a long story short, Geki×Cine is a filmed stage production, but one done so meticulously that not a single moment of relevance or emotion is lost in the translating process.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
May 13, 2015
Sign of the times as yakuza classic gets kudos at Cannes
In the early 2000s, when I was writing a book about yakuza movies, veterans of the genre's 1960s and '70s heyday I met had a fierce pride in their work but no illusions about its low ranking in the film-world hierarchy. In particular, the Toei studio's films about sword-swinging or gun-toting gangsters...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 13, 2015
Filmmakers Ash and Kamanaka discuss radiation, secrets and lives
Two filmmakers who have tackled the Fukushima issue — American and Japanese, storyteller and activist — discuss their work and their films, and consider the notion of 'being a 'foreign' filmmaker.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 22, 2015
Surviving the night of the long tentacular knives in 'Parasyte: Part 2'
When we left Shinichi (Shota Sometani) and his inseparable parasite companion Migi at the end of Takashi Yamazaki's 2014 sci-fi/horror hit "Kiseiju" ("Parasyte: Part 1"), the space-alien organisms who had found human hosts in the city of Higashi Fukuyama were not only slaughtering humans for food —...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Apr 22, 2015
The Zushi Beach Film Festival resists the ban on loud music and tattoos
Zushi Beach — a popular getaway for people seeking to escape Tokyo's stifling summer heat — may have banned "loud" music, tattoos and barbecues, but hey, at least it still has a film festival.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.