‘Over the Town’: Offbeat locals give slacker’s life color
Rikiya Imaizumi’s film about modern love may center on a scruffy man-child and his series of failures, but it’s the four women who become involved with him that give the story heart.
‘In Those Days’: Say hello to the fanboy life of days gone by
Rikiya Imaizumi’s bittersweet comedy-drama delves into the fan culture that flourished during the heyday of idol collective Hello! Project in the early 2000s.
Actor Hio Miyazawa gives a voice to Japan's LGBTQ community in the new film 'his'
Actor Hio Miyazawa gives a voice to sexual minorities in his latest role in Rikiya Imaizumi's latest film, "his."
'Just Only Love': Looking for romance in all the wrong places
If you believe everything you read in the news, Japanese romance movies should really belong in the science fiction category. Just last week, a new study estimated that a quarter of people aged 18 to 39 in Japan had never had heterosexual intercourse, feeding ...
'Their Distance' explores the pain of being young and in love
'Honesty," Billy Joel famously lamented in song, "is hardly ever heard." The characters of Rikiya Imaizumi's ensemble drama "Their Distance" ("Shiranai, Futari") seem to have been listening: They are honest to a fault with each other about their feelings, even ones that hurt their ...
Killing time at the Tokyo International Film Festival
Covering a film festival can turn anyone into a stickler for scheduling. Key screenings and Q&A sessions always seem to overlap and priorities collide. Do you stick with the stodgy Japanese biopic that you're supposed to be writing about, or sneak out halfway through ...
