The Japan Times

7 stories

The Japan TimesJapan‘In Their Traces’: An unflinching documentary about the survivors of sexual violence Veteran director Shigeru Kobayashi's documentary was made over the course of nine years and spotlights three women of different generations.

11.01

The Japan TimesJapan‘Moonlit Golden-Gai’: A director’s love letter to Shinjuku’s bar district Shinji Nishiki's debut feature finds humor, nostalgia and unexpected family ties among the regulars of a tiny Tokyo bar.

10.31

The Japan TimesJapan‘Arrested Memory’ filmmaker Sabu likes to stay on his toes Shot entirely in Taiwan, "Arrested Memory" is the latest in a string of international productions helmed by the idiosyncratic filmmaker.

10.30

The Japan TimesJapanSpooky, scary, gory: Anime selection for the season Decades of spooky anime offer plenty of choices for your viewing pleasure this Halloween season, from ghostly folklore to gory horror.

10.29

The Japan TimesJapanFestival de Frue offers an antidote to Japan’s samey music festivals The small-scale music festival has carved out its own identity without relying on deep-pocketed sponsors or pandering to the algorithm.

10.27

The Japan TimesJapanTakashi Miike pushes the envelope with ‘Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo’ Veteran director Takashi Miike reflects on his first major international coproduction and the existential questions that drive his work.

10.22

The Japan TimesJapanJapanese films at TIFF feature melodrama, monsters and more The 39th Tokyo International Film Festival will showcase Japanese cinema from golden age classics to indies by up-and-coming directors.

10.22

Our mark is 銀幕, ginmaku — the silver screen, and the same two characters in Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

I came to Tokyo at twenty-three for a summer job at a Shibuya mini-theatre and the job never quite ended. Fifteen years of festivals later I still think the only review that counts is the one the room gives you: where the laugh lands, the moment three hundred people stop moving at once, whether anybody stays for the credits.

Cinepuuulse follows Asian cinema — Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand — across about a hundred and twenty sources. A good number of them are Spanish, French and Portuguese, because those countries programme this work seriously and write about it better than most of the English-language trade. Genre and art-house get the same seat here. I am not ranking them, and nothing is scored out of ten.

Each story is a headline, a short excerpt, one still and a link to the outlet that did the reporting. We never republish the piece, and the still belongs to its studio or its photographer. A Korean trade paper appears in Korean, a French review in French. We point at the work; we do not put words in anyone's mouth.

— Daren Wise, Tokyo