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Since Then / あれから
The disaster of 3.11 not only destroyed much of northeastern Japan, but threw the nation into days and weeks of fear, uncertainty and introspection. Working with students at the Film School of Tokyo,...
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The Millennial Rapture / Sennen no yuraku / 千年の愉楽
Koji Wakamatsu was on a late career roll when it came to an abrupt end last October in a fatal car accident. He had just has festival premiere his final film, The Millennial Rapture. It’s flawed with...
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The Great Passage / Fune wo amu / 舟を編む
When it comes to movies about the heroics of editing dictionaries, Howard Hawks’ brilliant 1941 comedy, Ball of Fire, is the ur-text. Any other attempt to mine the same subject matter must be measured...
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Cold Bloom / Sakura Namiki no Mankai no Shita / 桜並木の満開の下に
There’s a certain point in Atsushi Funahashi’s ridiculously scripted drama of working class lives, Cold Bloom, where the viewer’s suspension of disbelief finally collapses and it all crashes. It could...
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The War and a Woman / Senso to Hitori no Onna / 戦争と一人の女
Koji Wakamatsu acolytes, Junichi Inoue and Haruhiko Arai, respectively director and screenwriter of Senso to Hitori no Onna, show how far the apples have fallen from the tree of the pinku political...
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Taidachi no shimauta / 旅立ちの島唄 十五の春
Taidachi no shimauta reaches an apotheosis of sentimentality, though not in an entirely undeserved way, following the coming of age of 15 year-old Yuna (Ayaka Miyoshi). Set on the Okinawan island of...
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Hajimari no Michi / Kinoshita Keisuke Story / はじまりのみち
In the centennial of his birth, director Keisuke Kinoshita’s legacy is being promoted and marketed without much thought to how his films have aged (not all that well). Kinoshita was a solid hack in his...
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Senkyo 2 / 選挙2
Kazuhiro Soda hit the documentary scene strong in 2007 with Campaign, a film that followed unwitting and inexperienced political candidate, Kazuhiko “Yama-san” Yamauchi, on the campaign trail in...
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A Pale Woman / Sohakusha A Pale Woman / 蒼白者 A Pale Woman
When Shu (Shugo Oshinari), the sensitive pianist was introduced as the old love interest of our heroine, Kim (Kim Kkobbi), I though that A Pale Woman would begin to drift off somewhere into the...
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Figyua na Anata / フィギュアなあなた
Director Takashi Ishii’s always had a misanthropic streak, but in Figyua na anata, he lets it fly with his critique of otaku (let’s just say Japanese male) culture. In this tale, freshly fired Kentaro...
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Flower of Shanidar / Shanidaru no Hana / シャニダールの花
Gakuryu Ishii’s new low budget fantasy, Flower of Shanidar, certainly makes a giant leap from his previous outing, Ikiterumono wa inai no ka, but still well misses the (high) marks set from his 35-year...
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Akaboshi / あかぼし
Ryohei Yoshino’s thrilling feature film debut, Akaboshi, revolves around a woman (Romi Park), who in the throes of grief at the loss of her husband is taken in by a religious cult. Her new community...
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Homesick
Satoru Hirohara’s slackerly comedies belie the usual formulas and bad habits of the genre and instead subtly dig deeper into questions of responsibility, connections and ties. His films, as light as...
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Enoshima Prism / 江ノ島プリズム
Hot on the heals of his gentle coming of age story, Taidachi no Shima Uta, Yasuhiro Yoshida’s released Enoshima Prism, a shaggy dog sentimental Groundhog’s Day variation. Three childhood friends, Shuta...
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Japanese Movie Posters 3
Ore wa jigoku e yuku / 俺は地獄へ行く (1961) 監督 野口博志 Director: Hiroshi Noguchi 脚本 星川清司 Script : Seiji Hoshikawa 撮影 永塚一栄...
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Miwa: Looking for Black Lizard / Miwa Akihiro Documentary ~ kuro tokage o...
Miwa: Looking for Black Lizard is sort of Miwa for beginners. The interviews are a bit standard, but the archival footage is magnificent. And there’s a certain Francophile tendency in director...
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Schoolgirl Complex / スクールガール コンプレックス
In its opening scenes Yuichi Onuma quickly dispatches the soft-core pervy David Hamilton-esque images by Yuki Aoyama that ostensibly inspired Schoolgirl Complex. He then concentrates on the more...
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Tomogui / 共喰い
With Tomogui, Shinji Aoyama misses again with a potentially interesting Zola-esque tale of the propensity of violence to be passed down from father to son. Set in a backwater town in the late 80s,...
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Devil’s Path / 凶悪
Director Kazuya Shiraishi’s second feature film outing is a far cry from his debut film, Lost Paradise in Tokyo, a realist whore-with-a-heart-of-gold fantasy. In Devil’s Path, he plumbs the depths of...
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The End of Summer / Natsu no Owari / 夏の終り
Kazuyoshi Kumari’s adaptation of activist nun Jakucho Setouchi’s breakthrough 1963 autobiographical novel, The End Of Summer beautifully captures the struggles of the barely fictional character, Tomoko...
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