Japan
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Incredibly silly comedy from director Fukuda Yuichi about a high school boy (Suzuki Ryohei) who inherits the twisted perversions of his parents (a masochistic cop and sadistic dominatrix respectively). When… Read More
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I’ve watched and struggled with Gaspar Noe’s surreal exploration of life after death before in the past, but there’s no denying the audacity of its ambition and the impact of… Read More
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Masters of Cinema just released Shindo Kaneto’s wonderfully poetic film on Blu-ray in the UK, a modern silent with almost no discernible dialogue, but an incredibly powerful narrative nonetheless about… Read More
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I almost let this one pass me by, put off by the daunting 160 minute runtime, but my efforts were handsomely rewarded as Okita Shuichi’s adaptation of Yoshida Shuichi’s popular… Read More
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A typically oddball tale of Japanese adolescence, but one that is hilarious, charming and delightfully off the wall. It centres on a typical 14-year-old boy, Maruyama, with an over-active imagination,… Read More
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Abbas Kiarostami continues his filmmaking sabbatical away from his Iranian homeland, which began in Tuscany with Certified Copy and now moves to Tokyo. As with many of the director’s films,… Read More
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My favourite Kurosawa film, and quite possibly my favourite Asian film of all-time, this masterful morality play changed the language of cinema forever. Its revelation that narrators, performances, even the… Read More
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Strange yet intoxicating musical documentary that explores a variety of traditional and alternative forms of Japanese music. A turntable-spinning priest and eccentric lady who attempts to harness all the sounds… Read More
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Largely unknown outside of its native Japan, this comedy classic set in a Tokyo brothel was just released last month on Blu-ray by Masters of Cinema and is the subject… Read More
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If you are looking for a singular cinematic experience, then look no further than this bizarre, anthropological odyssey through the backwaters of Okinawa – a remote island off the South… Read More
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I really struggled with this film. I am familiar with Mizoguchi Kenji’s work, and have enjoyed the films of his I have seen, but nothing could prepare me for the… Read More
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The latest from Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry) sees the Iranian auteur continue his globe-trotting which began with 2010’s Certified Copy. In Like Someone in Love, he heads for Japan,… Read More
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Prolific Japanese director Miike Takashi returns to his exploitation roots with this darkly comic story of a murderous high school teacher, who takes dead aim at his own students. Read More
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Ambition conquers aesthetics in Sono Sion’s epic Tokyo Gagaga experiment from 1995, which is only now seeing the light of day. 160mins of gang fights & gay love shot of… Read More
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Going into this Okinawa World Premiere completely blind I could not have been more surprised by the film I saw. I had somehow failed to notice that Kaneto Shusuke’s film… Read More
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An unusual inclusion in the Local Origination Project section was this Hong Kong-set short from Horie Kei. Filmed in a combination of Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese, it nevertheless proved an… Read More
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I was really keen to check out some of the homegrown offerings from Okinawan filmmakers while I was on the island, and this one in particular caught my eye, not… Read More
The James Marsh film review archive 