‘Sensei, Would You Sit Beside Me?’: A piercing look at marriage through manga
Takahiro Horie’s slickly plotted drama about two married manga artists offers a fresh take on marital strife and what makes a relationship survive.
'Shape of Red': A torrid but ultimately unsatisfying affair
Kaho plays a frustrated housewife who engages in a passionate tryst with a former boyfriend in Yukiko Mishima's latest film.
Haruhiko Arai: Still pushing boundaries after 40 years in film
In a four-decade career, Haruhiko Arai has become an acclaimed scriptwriter with credits that include "Vibrator" (2003), "It's Only Talk" (2005) and "Kabukicho Love Hotel" (2014), three of the best films by his frequent collaborator, the director Ryuichi Hiroki. Arai also edits and publishes "Eiga ...
'It Feels So Good': An explicit escapade, artfully told
The average bride-to-be spends the final days before her wedding fretting about seating plans and whether she'll be able to squeeze into her dress, but Naoko (Kumi Takiuchi) decides it's a good time to hook up with an old flame instead. In the years since ...
Tasuku Emoto talks about directing, acting in English and sounding like Tom Cruise
This has been a busy year for Tasuku Emoto. Long accustomed to appearing in colorful supporting roles, the 31-year-old actor has found himself starring in three films in 2018. After playing real-life porn entrepreneur Akira Suei in "Dynamite Graffiti" and the slacker protagonist of "And ...
'And Your Bird Can Sing': A vague take on the complexities of youth
The work of the late novelist Yasushi Sato, who took his own life in 1990, has been enjoying a minor cinematic renaissance over the past decade. Starting with Kazuyoshi Kumakiri's "Sketches of Kaitan City" in 2010, the author's stories have spawned four films to ...
'Lockheed Incident Document 40th Year Shocking Scoop'; 'Yassan'; Xflag
Thanks mainly to a first-person "biography" written by former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, there is renewed interest in disgraced former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. NHK is presenting a series of special programs, some of which are dramatizations, about the scandal that brought Tanaka down: ...
