Japan
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Cinema is filled with stories about journeys, and none more so than the long, slow march towards death that each of us must travel. Ageing and mortality are inevitable facts… Read More
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Following the international success of 2016’s Your Name , director Makoto Shinkai conjures another tale of impossible young love, stretched across multiple dimensions – even with the protagonists from that… Read More
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A big-screen sequel to a star-studded Fuji TV drama series, The Confidence Man JP: The Movie follows Dako (Masami Nagasawa) and her crew of high-stakes con artists to Hong Kong,… Read More
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When housewife and mother Yuko Suzuki (Hideko Hara) discovers that her reclusive adult son, Koichi (Ryo Kase), has committed suicide, she attempts to take her own life. After weeks in… Read More
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Twenty-three-year-old filmmaker Hiroshi Okuyama became the youngest ever recipient of the new director award at last year’s San Sebastian Film Festival with his debut feature Jesus, which wowed audiences with… Read More
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Following in the grand tradition of master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, A Long Goodbye is forged not from earth-shattering drama, but rather the minutiae of everyday struggles that test the bonds… Read More
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Sixty-five years after the release of Godzilla, nothing has withered the impact or influence of this atomic-fuelled Japanese masterpiece. Conceived as a direct response to King Kong, which enjoyed a… Read More
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A young amnesiac and a grieving widower find a modicum of solace in each other’s company in the debut feature from Nanako Hirose, former assistant to acclaimed filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda.… Read More
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A team of homicide detectives go undercover at a top Tokyo hotel to catch a serial killer in Masayuki Suzuki’s crowd-pleasing adaptation of Keigo Higashino’s bestselling novel. Anchoring this glossy,… Read More
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This weekend, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma will make Oscars history if it becomes the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Should it do so, the Oscar… Read More
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Japanese actress Kirin Kiki died last September, but the 75-year-old worked right up until her death and leaves behind an impressive body of work that continues to yield new treasures.… Read More
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In the world of Japanese antiques, nobody can be trusted – or so it would appear in Masaharu Take’s comedy. We Make Antiques! portrays an industry overrun by duplicitous dealers… Read More
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The tea ceremony is one of the classical Japanese arts of refinement, combining a complex series of movements and gestures, with a subtle understanding of the seasons, the weather, poetry… Read More
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In 2011, Taiwanese author Giddens Ko Ching-teng turned his hand to filmmaking – scripting and directing an adaptation of his semi-autobiographical novel You Are the Apple of My Eye. A… Read More
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More Than Blue, the Taiwanese remake of the 2009 South Korean tear-jerker, is sending audiences reaching for the Kleenex once again. It stars Jasper Liu Yi-hao as a young man… Read More
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A young man crippled by debt learns the obvious lesson that money can’t buy happiness in Keishi Ohtomo’s laborious cautionary tale. Adapted by Genki Kawamura from his own novel, Million… Read More
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Daisuke Miura is no stranger to Japan’s prolific soft core pornographic film industry. In 2014, the writer-director adapted his own play Love’s Whirlpool into a critically acclaimed film about lonely… Read More
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Many people have experienced that pang of inexplicable guilt upon recognising something in a current partner that reminds one of a former flame. Often it underscores nothing more than our… Read More
The James Marsh film review archive 