'Kingdom': An admirable try at Chinese history
Why should Japanese kids care about a manga set in China's Warring States Period, (475-221 B.C.)? The players and power struggles are hard enough for professional historians (and this reviewer) to grasp, let alone 10-year-olds. Yasuhisa Hara found a winning answer in "Kingdom," a manga ...
'Inuyashiki': It's a bird, it's a plane ... it's salaryman!
Fantasizing about instantly acquiring superpowers is something you do as a kid — or when you're late for an appointment and imagine flying to it like Superman. But what if your power-up comes when you're creaky in the joints and counting the days to ...
'I Am a Hero': Japanese zombies pick up the pace
Horror films here have traditionally featured vengeful female ghosts, but Japanese filmmakers do also take cues from Hollywood, where zombies have long flourished since George Romero's seminal "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) and "Dawn of the Dead" (1978). Even so, Japanese zombie films, ...
