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April 29, 2024
 

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TAKASHI MIIKE

A psychopathic lawyer (Kazuya Kamenashi) finds himself targeted by a serial killer — and decides to fight back — in Takashi Miike’s “Lumberjack the Monster.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 30, 2023
‘Lumberjack the Monster’ will talk you to death
Takashi Miike’s film about a psychopath battling a serial killer fails to deliver on its schlocky potential.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 5, 2021
Horror director Takashi Miike swaps slaughter for 'sparkle' in girl superhero drama
Takashi Miike's latest film seems out of step with his gore-filled oeuvre, but the director maintains that there are similar elements.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2020
'First Love': A heartfelt throwback to the golden age of yakuza flicks
Masataka Kubota plays a doomed boxer who takes on the yazuka in Takashi Miike's newest film.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Dec 20, 2019
Takashi Miike shows his softer side at Macao film festival
Japan's master of the ultra-violent, darkly comedic and low-budge yakuza flick, Takashi Miike, discusses the ideas of love and boxing which are prevelant in his latest film, 'First Love.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
May 23, 2019
Japan takes a backseat at Cannes
The Cannes Film Festival, the world's premier film event, has long been a holy grail for Japanese filmmakers. Selection for the main competition is the ultimate goal for many, though screenings in other sections convey prestige at home that other festivals, in Japan and elsewhere, can't match.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 26, 2017
'Blade of the Immortal': Film version of manga hit goes overboard in its execution
Based on Hiroaki Samura's long-running (1993-2012) manga, the samurai swashbuckler "Blade of the Immortal" promises the sort of fun, over-the-top action that has long been a trademark of its director, Takashi Miike.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 14, 2016
'The Mole Song: Hong Kong Capriccio': Digging deep into the yakuza
Since his start as a director in 1991, Takashi Miike has accumulated nearly 100 credits, including his output for television broadcast and straight-to-video release. Far from being the faceless journeyman this number suggests, Miike is a genre auteur who has put his individual stamp on his films, with extreme violence, kinky sex, black humor and unbridled imagination being his familiar signatures.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Dec 7, 2016
'Crazy Thunder Road' is still a mad, but great film
Sogo Ishii — or Gakuryu Ishii, as he now prefers to be known — was just 23 when he released "Crazy Thunder Road," perhaps one of the greatest films to emerge from Japan's punk era (an honor it shares with the director's 1982 follow-up, "Burst City"). A nihilistic tale of warring biker gangs and ultra-nationalist militias, the movie drew comparisons to George Miller's "Mad Max," released a year earlier, though it was closer in spirit to the low-budget filmmaking that was then being pioneered by Sam Raimi in the United States.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 27, 2016
'Terraformars': Miike's life on Mars has its bugs
Now that voyages to Mars seem likely in the next generation or so, films about the red planet are moving beyond the "John Carter" (2012) space-opera stage. But for every reality-based "The Martian," there is still a "Terraformars," Takashi Miike's latest extreme entertainment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 20, 2015
Aikawa's brainless fun in 'Deadman Inferno'
Sho Aikawa was once the tough-guy muse of Takashi Miike, appearing in films such as "Gokudo Kuroshakai" ("Rainy Dog"), "Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha" ("Dead or Alive") and "Gokudo Kyofu Dai-gekijo: Gozu" ("Gozu") that made the director the international "King of Cult." The sandpapery voice, the sideways stare and the sudden, stylish eruptions into action added up to the essence of cool.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 28, 2015
Roppongi Kabuki cites sci-fi, punk
Known for its nightlife, its fleets of Ferraris and condos with sky-high prices, the affluent central Tokyo district of Roppongi will soon go where even that multinational neighborhood has never gone before — when the launch of a program named Roppongi Kabuki will see that ancient form of traditional theater staged there for the first time ever.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 1, 2015
Curtains up on 2015
Innovation adds sparkle to traditional forms
CULTURE / Books
Aug 17, 2013
Revisiting the works of director Takashi Miike
Takashi Miike is one of the few Japanese filmmakers now working, Takeshi Kitano and Hayao Miyazaki being two others, who enjoy a measure of recognition outside Japan's insular film world. Though hardly a household name in Kansas, Miike has long been a favorite with the international Asian Extreme Cinema crowd, who first loved him for his bad-boy violence and black-comic weirdness: The bodyguard with the dart-shooting vagina in "Fudoh: The New Generation" (1997), the psychotic former dancer who saws off her middle-aged lover's foot in "Audition" (1999) or the dancing corpses in "The Happiness of the Katakuris" (2001).
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.
Number of homeless in Japan hits record low
Homeless people sleep on the street in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward in August 2021.
Raising kids in Japan as a single parent? It takes a village.
Making things work as a foreign, single mother in Japan isn't easy, but these tips and tricks can help you through the hardest parts.
JAL cancels international flight after captain gets drunk at Dallas hotel
A Japan Airlines' flight from Dallas to Tokyo was canceled last week after its captain got drunk at a local hotel.
In Japan, regional revitalization fails to halt population decline
Sakiyama elementary school in Tamba, Hyogo Prefecture, in March .Over the past decade, the government has directed efforts toward policies designed to give young people incentives to base themselves in rural areas.
Putin’s war will soon reach Russians’ tax bills
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting in St. Petersburg on Friday.
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.
Casa del Cibo: A thriving jewel born from Tohoku’s harsh past
When chef Ryohei Ikemi moved to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, and opened Casa del Cibo in 2011, it was the first proper Italian restaurant in the 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.
Kyotographie's strong 12th edition shines light into the margins
Yassine Alaoui Ismaili, who goes by Yoriyas, turned to photography, shooting motion while in motion himself, after an injury forced him to give up his career as a professional breakdancer.

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