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May 03, 2024
 

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JAPANESE FILM

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 12, 2013
Young, dead and dealing with the consequences
A veteran director of feature episodes in the classic "Ultraman" tokusatsu (special effects) series, Kazuya Konaka may not be the most obvious choice for a drama about teen suicide, but a look at his filmography, including 1998's "Nazo no Tenkosei (The Dimension Travelers)" and 2008's "Tokyo Shojo (Tokyo Girl)," reveals a long-standing interest in seishun eiga (youth films) with a supernatural twist and serious bent.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 11, 2013
'Iconography of Yasujiro Ozu'
Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) is one of Japan's most influential filmmakers, internationally renowned for his realistic and sensitive portrayals of relationships and family drama in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 28, 2013
Yamashita and Maeda reunite for slacker dramedy
Nobuhiro Yamashita has used a variety of sources for his films since his 1999 feature debut "Donten Seikatasu (Hazy Life)," including his own experiences as a struggling indie director. But the inspiration for his latest, "Moratorium Tamako (Tamako in Moratorium)," is out of the ordinary by any standard: 30-second ads for the Music On! TV cable station.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2013
'Kaguya-hime no Monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya)'
Isao Takahata has long been overshadowed by longtime colleague and Studio Ghibli cofounder Hayao Miyazaki. The younger man (Takahata is 78, Miyazaki 72) has had more and bigger hits, including his latest, the World War II-themed "Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises)," while Takahata's last feature animation, the 1999 family comedy "Hohokekyo Tonari no Yamada-kun (My Neighbors the Yamadas)," was a rare Ghibli box-office disappointment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 7, 2013
Money, censorship and the future of Asian cinema
Flitting around Roppongi Hills during the week of the Tokyo International Film Festival, you get to meet and chat with any number of interesting people, but one of the better conversations I had was sitting down for coffee with Jacob Wong, curator of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, held each year in late March and early April.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 17, 2013
Terajima brings legacy to TIFF
The 40-year-old is a dramatic force, with undiluted acting DNA coursing through her veins. Her father is kabuki actor Onoe Kikugoro VII, whose family lineage can be traced back seven centuries. Her mother is treasured actress Sumiko Fuji, whose own father was a famed producer for Toei Films.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 17, 2013
TIFF's programming director explains the festival's direction
Since 2007, when he took over as programming director of the Tokyo International Film Festival's Competition section, Yoshihiko "Yoshi" Yatabe has been a point person in TIFF's drive to elevate its status in the region and the world. A former film distributor, publicist and producer, Yatabe joined the TIFF staff in 2002 and has become the festival's trim, energetic, habitually smiling face.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2013
Busan is still Asia's film-fest gem, but its sparkle is fading
During the Q&A session after the screening of his new film "Stray Dogs" at the 18th Busan International Film Festival, which ran Oct. 3-12, Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang mentioned that not only was his previous film not distributed in South Korea, it wasn't even shown at BIFF. Tsai was one of the pioneering Asian film artists of the 1990s, and his gregarious personality used to be a fixture at the festival. He wasn't being critical of BIFF for ignoring him, just acknowledging how different the situation is now.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 10, 2013
TIFF is your chance to catch up with Japanese film
The Tokyo International Film Festival, now in its 26th edition, has had its share of detractors, dissing it for everything from competition lineups of major festival castoffs (no longer true since TIFF stopped insisting on world premieres) to a Special Screening section that is essentially a PR showcase for upcoming commercial releases (still and forever the case). And yet foreign critics, bloggers and fans keep turning up at TIFF for at least one reason: The festival offers a rare chance to see large numbers of new and not so new Japanese films with English subtitles, in better-than-average screening conditions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 3, 2013
Double the trouble, twice the joy for Japan's hafu
Until about 10 years ago, the standard Japanese image of kids of mixed blood was that they were 1) gorgeous, 2) rich and 3) able to live in Japan with none of the kinks and hang out at Azabu clubs when they were 13. In high school, my girlfriends scorned their own Japanese heritage. The common reply to what we wanted to be when we graduated was "gaijin" (foreigner). Failing that, the next best option was to marry a gaijin and bear hāfu (mixed-race) kids, who would then automatically go on to have brilliant careers as newscasters or supermodels.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 26, 2013
Actor-director Okuda revisits wreckage of 3/11
Actors see how directors do their job — and not a few imagine they can do it better. But the number of Japanese actors who move successfully into the director's chair is small.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013
Kobayashi film explores Japan's suicide problem
A folk-singer-turned-filmmaker who went to France in 1981 to apprentice under his idol François Truffaut, Masahiro Kobayashi may have failed in his quest (he couldn't work up the courage to press Truffaut's doorbell), but after returning to Japan became a prolific scriptwriter for pinku (softcore porn) films.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013
When young creators answer the big city's siren call
Veteran scriptwriter and director Toshiyuki Morioka had more than a professional interest in making his new film "Jokyo Monogatari." Based on an autobiographical manga by Rieko Saibara, its story of an aspiring artist coming to Tokyo to learn her trade and make her fortune was his as well.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2013
Spirits linger in the trinkets of Hiroshima's dead
They say most people have one or more defining childhood incidents — something that sets the course of their adult life and molds their personality. Filmmaker Linda Hoaglund had one, and it was so striking that to this day she can still remember the flush on her face, the tingling of her skin and the sensation that what she was experiencing would stay with her forever.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 28, 2013
Documenting Japan's 'strange' election campaigns
A native of Tochigi Prefecture and a graduate of the University of Tokyo, where he majored in religious studies, Kazuhiro Soda took an early turn off a conventional career path when he went to New York in 1993 to study filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts. After a stab at fiction filmmaking, which won him prizes but not many job offers, he began working on documentaries to pay the rent — and discovered a new vocation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013
Screen violence is in the eye of the beholder
Some people avoid violent films, while others watch little else. Professional movie reviewers, who may see hundreds of films annually, cannot afford to be so picky. If you are covering the Cannes Film Festival competition, as I did one year for the Screen International daily critics' poll, you cannot blow off a film on grounds of genre ("I hate action movies!"), sexual politics ("The director is a misogynist!") or body count ("A dozen dead in the trailer alone!"). In fact, the best films at Cannes or elsewhere often challenge, shock and disturb. If, as a critic, you can't handle that, you should find another line of work.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 17, 2013
KAT-TUN star's knack for reinvention aids film role
Director Satoshi Miki's new comedy "Ore Ore (It's Me, it's Me)" is more on the cultish than the commercial end of the scale, with its head-scratcher of a story about a first-time scammer who starts encountering various versions of himself in a bizarre new world: karmic payback for impersonating a stranger via a stolen cellphone to the man's own mother.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 3, 2013
Yoshida's ode to a distant Okinawan island
Many directors hit everything from the books to the streets in preparation for their next film, but for his second feature, “Tabidachi no Shima Uta — Jugo no Haru (Leaving on the 15th Spring),” Yasuhiro Yoshida went far further than most.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 19, 2013
Ishikawa knows when to throw away the script
Japanese directors of TV dramas often make films that are basically big-screen versions of small-screen shows. No surprise, since their TV-network backers want product that will work equally well with multiplex audiences and home viewers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 12, 2013
Funahashi: 'Good stories don't need happy endings'
A graduate of the University of Tokyo's cinema studies course, Atsushi Funahashi studied directing at the School of Visual Arts in New York and shot his first two films, “Echoes” (2002) and “Big River” (2005), in the United States.
Weak yen fattens tourist wallets in Japan
People visit the Ameya Yokocho market in Tokyo's Ueno district during the Golden Week holiday on Tuesday.
Number of vacant homes in Japan hits record high of 9 million
A vacant house in Tokyo is seen demolished in January 2020.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.

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