Yurakucho, a quarter to nine. The last screening of a Korean thriller I had already seen, and the room was full anyway: salarymen with their jackets folded on their knees, two students sharing one drink, a woman alone in the second row who did not move for two hours. When the lights came up nobody reached for a phone. That minute is the reason for this magazine.

Cinepuuulse takes its mark from 銀幕, ginmaku, the old word for the silver screen, the same two characters in Japanese, Chinese and Korean. It is a magazine because every week one film deserves to be read about slowly. A radar because we count what the screens of Asia are talking about, from box office in Hanoi to a restoration in Taipei, and show it as it moves. A diary because a seal is set every day in that day's colour.

We read the local press in its own language and bring it over: the Japanese film sites, the Korean trade papers, the Chinese culture desks, the Vietnamese and Thai entertainment pages, the world's critics when they turn east. Every line links back to the people who wrote it. Nothing here is ours except the looking.

So this is the first week. Busan opens in a month, Tokyo the month after. Find one title on this page you have never heard of, and buy the ticket. The dark room is waiting.