Japan

A collection of 23 posts

Paid-members only

Obayashi Nobuhiko

School in the Crosshairs (Obayashi Nobuhiko, 1981)

Paid-members only

Obayashi Nobuhiko

House (Obayashi Nobuhiko, 1977)

Paid-members only

A Better Tomorrow

Wolf Pack and Baby Assassins (Michael Chiang, 2022 and Sakamoto Yugo, 2021)

Paid-members only

Ohku Akiko

My Sweet Grappa Remedies (Ohku Akiko, 2019)

Ohku Akiko

Ohku Akiko Capsule Reviews

Tremble All You Want (2017) — July 19, 2018 Tremble All You Want features yet another unrequited school crush[1], this one seen in flashback as 24 year old Yoshika is still obsessed with a boy she had a couple of fleeting interactions with a decade before. Now working as an

Hamguchi Ryûsuke

Hamaguchi Ryūsuke Capsule Reviews

Happy Hour (2015) — March 12, 2017 Would have been better to be able to see it all at once, in a theatre, but as it was, on my TV and spread out over five days, it’s pretty remarkable. All the performances are great, but I’ll go with Kikuchi

Hamguchi Ryûsuke

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Hamaguchi Ryūsuke, 2021)

The similarities I found to Hong Sangsoo in Hamaguchi Ryūsuke’s last feature, Asako I & II, were surface level, based on the inexplicable doubling of (at least) one main character in a romance (as in Yourself and Yours), while the bulk of the movie’s greatness was to be found

Obayashi Nobuhiko

Obayashi Nobuhiko Capsule Reviews

His Motorbike, Her Island (1986)— January 14, 2021 Extremely beautiful film probably made even more romantic by the fact that it’s impossible for me to see someone ride a motorcycle and not imagine them crashing into a fiery death at any moment. Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and

Shimomura Yûji

Crazy Samurai Musashi (Shimomura Yûji, 2020)

Legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi has defeated the champion of the Yoshioka clan in a duel. In retaliation, the clan gathers 100 samurai and 300 mercenaries to ambush him and exact their revenge. But then things go terribly, terribly wrong as that crazy samurai kills them all, one after another in

Miike Takashi

First Love (Miike Takashi, 2019)

Every time I watch a Miike Takashi movie, I end up asking myself why I ever watch movies that aren’t Miike Takashi movies. That’s certainly the case with First Love, his latest, which premiered at Cannes earlier this year and opens next week at the Uptown. It’s

Iwai Shunji

The Case of Hana and Alice (Iwai Shunji, 2015)

What do you do if you want to make a prequel to one of your best movies, one built as much around the performances of two terrific young actresses more than anything else, but a decade has passed and the actresses are now much too old to be playing the

Iwai Shunji

Iwai Shunji Capsule Reviews

Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom? (1993) — November 7, 2018 Iwai Shunji, with no budget and only a couple of ideas, making all the other TV movies look terrible. Love Letter (1995) — November 7, 2018 Maybe the most accomplished feature debut of his contemporaries, probably

Obayashi Nobuhiko

Hanagatami (Obayashi Nobuhiko, 2017)

Obayashi Nobuhiko’s Hanagatami is the kind of maximalist masterpiece that simply has to been seen. A story about the lives of young people in a remote village in Japan in the months leading up to Pearl Harbor, it’s awash in the poetic dreams of youth, aswoon with love

Miike Takashi

Takashi Capsule Reviews

Dead or Alive (1999) — November 1, 2017 No filmmaker in the world has more fun that Takashi Miike. That’s evident from a late career masterpiece like 2012’s Ace Attorney, or from the last of the prolific director’s films to play here in Seattle, Yakuza Apocalypse. But even

Kurosawa Kiyoshi

Kiyoshi Kurosawa Capsule Reviews

Cure (1997) — May 10, 2016 “Psychiatry is a pseudoscience.” — Tom Cruise Pulse (2001) — May 10, 2016 Remember when the internet was so new and mysterious we thought it might plausibly contain demons? Now we know it’s just full of assholes. Double feature this with The Midnight After. Tokyo Sonata

Devils on the Doorstep

Yamashita Nobuhiro Capsule Reviews

Linda Linda Linda (2005) — May 13, 2015 Last night, I dreamt that Bae Doona was a professional basketball player and was generating serious All-Star consideration as the point guard for the New York Knicks. It took me awhile, on waking, to realize that that was in fact a dream and

Sono Sion

Sono Sion Capsule Reviews

Tokyo Tribe (2014) — February 20, 2015 I’d love to see this play on a double bill somewhere with The Midnight After. I would totally show this movie to a class to explain the society and culture of early Anglo-Saxon Britain. Somewhat related: no one wants me teaching their history

Kurosawa Kiyoshi

Before We Vanish (Kurosawa Kiyoshi, 2017)

The latest film from one of the most interesting directors in the world right now is playing at the Grand Illusion for week starting this Friday. Kurosawa Kiyoshi, director of such key Japanese horror films as Pulse and Cure, as well as award-winning dramas like Tokyo Sonata, was last seen

Kurosawa Kiyoshi

Daguerrotype (Kurosawa Kiyoshi, 2016)

Halloween may have passed but it’s always a good time to watch a creepy movie by a great director, and that exactly what Daguerrotype by Kurosawa Kiyoshi is. The artiest of the filmmakers to emerge in the J-Horror boom of the late 90s, or at least the one most

Sono Sion

Love Exposure (Sono Sion, 2008)

‘Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,’ The shade replied, — ‘If you seek for Eldorado!’ Love Exposure is an epic four-hour romantic comedy about terrible fathers, upskirt photography, Catholicism, and the meaning of love. Where Bicycle Sighs was a fairly typical minimalist

Sono Sion

Suicide Club (Sono Sion, 2001)

Don’t try suicide Nobody’s worth it Don’t try suicide Nobody cares Don’t try suicide You’re just gonna hate it Don’t try suicide Nobody gives a damn Suicide Club opens with a montage of the city at night, documentary realist footage of pedestrians moving through

Sono Sion

Bicycle Sighs (Sono Sion, 1990)

Sono Sion’s 1990 debut feature is a coming-of-age story heavily influenced by the then newly fashionable minimalist style, but with a few distinctive quirks. Sono himself plays Shiro, one of three friends hanging around delivering newspapers while they study for their college entrance exams. Shiro’s best friend, Keita

Miike Takashi

Yakuza Apocalypse (Miike Takashi, 2015)

Playing this Friday and Saturday at midnight only comes the latest from prolific Japanese lunatic Miike Takashi. The limited late night time slot gives a hint of what to expect, even if you’re unfamiliar with Miike’s work, much of which amounts to highly imaginative reworkings of familiar genres,