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 ...
'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. However, it labors to deliver, including during the 300-against-1 fight scene shown in ...
'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 ...
'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, ...
'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. The original ...
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, ...
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 ...
Innovation adds sparkle to traditional forms Looking into the crystal ball of Japan's traditional performing arts in 2015 reveals a sparkling blend of change and tradition. In what is its 120th year, the film and theater company and pillar of kabuki, Shochiku, will mark the succession ...
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 ...
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 ...
