Tag - japanese-film

 
Menu
Search
 
October 24, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

JAPANESE FILM

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 18, 2014
Hideaki Anno: emotional deconstructionist
With dozens of the renowned filmmaker's works scheduled to be screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival over the next two weeks, we speak to the man behind the 'Evangelion' sci-fi franchise about his apocalyptic influences and prod him on the question that is on every fan's lips
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 16, 2014
Tokyo International Film Festival contender 'Pale Moon' gets to the root of all evil
The bad news? Japan has only one entry in the Competition section at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival. The good news? The submission, Daihachi Yoshida's "Pale Moon," is a major contender for the $50,000 Tokyo Grand Prix.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 15, 2014
Two men and a tot make a half-decent film
When indie directors take a more commercial turn, the usual explanation is the bigger paycheck, but it's not always so simple. Yuya Ishii's shift from the raucous films of his early career to the more genteel, mainstream 2013 film "Fune wo Amu (The Great Passage)" raised not only his standard of living...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 8, 2014
Harmonic slips in time, identity and language
World War II-themed films by elderly Japanese directors with direct experience of the war are not only becoming scarcer, but are also distinctly different from those of younger filmmakers trying to appeal to a mass audience. Kazuo Kuroki's 2006 film "Kamiya Etsuko no Seishun (The Blossoming of Kamiya...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 1, 2014
Death-row samurai spills ink, not blood
Why have samurai movies become so middle-aged and sedate? Starting in the silent days and continuing through their 1950s peak, period films with top-knotted heroes typically featured a big one-against-many finale with flashing swords and the occasional firearm. Especially in the early days, both actors...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 17, 2014
'My Fair Lady' wrapped in a geisha's kimono
The musical used to be among the rarest of Japanese film genres. Plenty of films here — going back to the early talkies — featured singing and dancing, but Broadway-style musicals, which integrate the songs into the story, never really caught on.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 3, 2014
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 27, 2014
Bloody hip-hop war set in technicolored Tokyo
A Japanese hip-hop musical? How about a samurai swashbuckler set on the streets of Compton, California? But Sion Sono makes his new film, "Tokyo Tribe," more than an oddity of cultural appropriation. Truth be told, I felt queasy as the story, based on a manga by Santa Inoue, began to unfold in a crime-ridden...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 6, 2014
Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Taika-hen (Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno)
The jidaigeki (samurai period drama) is dying, we have been told again and again. Topknots and swords have become rare sights on television, while Japanese studios, which once devoted nearly half their production to the genre, now essay only the occasional chanbara (swordplay) film, with mixed box-office...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 4, 2014
Evangelion director to be featured at Tokyo International Film Festival
The work of visionary director Hideaki Anno will take center stage at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 30, 2014
Lost in a dingy maze of booze, sex and crime
Golden-gai, a warren of tiny bars near Shinjuku's Kabukicho entertainment district, has long been a refuge for writers, musicians, filmmakers and other artistic types, who congregate at drinking establishments with like-minded patrons. The area also has a seedier, less reputable side, which is graphically...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 30, 2014
R-18 to G: Are pink films losing their potency?
Yuji Tajiri and Shinji Imaoka were two of the “Seven Lucky Gods of Pink” — a group of young pinku eiga (erotic film) directors who were hailed as the genre’s hope after they rose to prominence in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 23, 2014
Love beyond the realms of erotic cinema
The varieties of love are many: From the chaste and platonic, to the sexually uninhibited and emotionally obsessed. In a long career as a pinku eiga (pink film) director Yuji Tajiri has concentrated on the latter end of the scale, but in his latest film, "Koppamijin (Broken Pieces)," he makes a successful,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 16, 2014
Reflections on the dark side of a tropical island
Naomi Kawase was once Japan's best-known female director abroad; now she is one of its most internationally prominent directors, regardless of gender.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 28, 2014
Godfather of J-horror escapes from genre's grip
Hideo Nakata could be called the godfather of contemporary Japanese horror, but he would probably hate the label. Regardless, this 52-year-old director of such genre classics as "Ring," "Ring 2" and "Honogurai Mizu no Soko kara (Dark Water)" has made J-horror — a combination of present-day settings...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 24, 2014
Painful love in decaying Hokkaido port town
My interview with Mipo Oh, the director of the turbulent new love drama 'Soko Nomi Nite Hikari Kagayaku (The Light Shines Only There),' did not begin smoothly.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 27, 2014
Trial by media, conviction by word of mouth
Yoshihiro Nakamura makes movies that puzzle, surprise and illuminate their themes both cleverly and literally (the fireworks of "Golden Slumber," the comet of "Fish Story"). Everyone's heard of the "butterfly effect" — how a small action in one place (a butterfly flapping its wings in a South American...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Mar 27, 2014
Okinawa film fest gives fans an up-close view of the stars
Why go to Okinawa for movies? For anyone familiar with the international festival circuit, especially at its higher, artier end, the Okinawa International Movie Festival may well prompt this question — and a negative answer. "It's not a real film festival!" a fellow foreign journalist exclaimed to...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 6, 2014
Live-action Ghibli remake delivers a new Kiki
When is a remake not a remake? Arguably, Takashi Shimizu's "Majo no Takkyubin (Kiki's Delivery Service)" is less a reworking of the Hayao Miyazaki animation classic (which this reviewer praised on this page in 1989) than his own interpretation of the 1985 Eiko Kadono fantasy novel on which the Miyazaki...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2014
Debate still rages over Abe-endorsed WWII drama
Takashi Yamazaki's World War II drama "Eien no Zero (The Eternal Zero)," whose pilot hero joins the tokkōtai (kamikaze) suicide squadron in the closing days of the war, has soared to the box office heights since its Dec. 21 release. After ranking No. 1 in the charts for eight weeks in a row, the film...
Rare female yakuza walks path to redemption in Japan
Retired yakuza Mako Nishimura sorts fallen leaves during a clean-up activity at the Gifu Gokoku shrine in Gifu Prefecture on Sept. 28.
Takaichi makes history as Japan’s first female prime minister
Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi reacts to applauding lawmakers after being elected prime minister at the Lower House on Tuesday.
Japanese man sentenced to eight years after rare public accusation of rape
Riho Fukuyama (center) and her husband Yoshiki Fukuyama (left) speak to the media with their lawyer (right) outside the Toyama District Court in Toyama on Tuesday.
Woman arrested for pepper spray assault on Yamanote Line
Emergency vehicles arrive at the JR Otsuka Station in Tokyo Monday following a report that a woman had allegedly injured passengers with pepper spray inside a train on the Yamanote Line.
North Korea fires off ballistic missiles one day after Takaichi named PM
People watch a TV news report about North Korean short-range ballistic missile launches, at the main railway station in Seoul on Wednesday.
AI-optimized cybercrime increasingly targeting Japan
A recent cyberattack on brewer Asahi Group Holdings resulted in the company suspending shipments.
K-pop idol Chanyeol does J-pop his own way on ‘Hibi’
South Korean singer Chanyeol made his Japanese-language solo debut with the EP “Hibi,” which features six tracks inspired by his love of Japanese music.
In pictures: The day Japan’s glass ceiling finally cracked
Takaichi, surrounded by LDP influencers
London exhibition perhaps sumo's most successful trip abroad
With the recent sumo jaunt to London being essentially a goodwill exercise, <i>rikishi</i> were far more outgoing and relaxed than normal.
Nakatsu keeps its cool as gentrification looms
Shunsuke Takahashi, owner of the cafe Hood by Vargas, says the Osaka neighborhood of Nakatsu feels brighter and calmer with the influx of new businesses.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The byzantine process for converting a foreign driver’s license into a Japanese one entails mountains of paperwork and significant stamina — unless you're a lucky license holder from a country or region where these requirements are waived.
Driving in Japan isn’t hard. Getting the license is.
By Thu-Huong Ha and Mike Fu

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo
Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER