Hirokazu Koreeda’s ‘Sheep in the Box’ Embraces AI Unquestioningly
Hirokazu Koreeda’s unsettling Sheep in the Box confuses love with imitation and embraces AI unquestioningly.
japanese cinema
Sex, Violence, and Politics Soak Nagisa Ōshima’s ‘Cruel Story of Youth’
Nagisa Ōshima’s Cruel Story of Youth prefers to understand its protagonists rather than evaluate them, reserving its verdicts for the social structures that define them.
‘Renoir’ Faces the Uglier Parts of Grieving
Chie Hayakawa’s deeply personal Renoir is a harsh and intimate portrait of childhood, examining a grief that arrives without clear form or catharsis.
What Upholds Kokuho’s Mystique?
Highly praised, to a sycophantic degree, one might argue, Sang-il Lee’s lengthy drama, Kokuho, fails the artfulness of its subject.
Kinuyo Tanaka’s Films About Women in Japan’s Evolving Postwar Society
Kinuyo Tanaka remains more famous for acting in other directors’ films, but Kinuyo Tanaka Directs demonstrates her command of the qualities needed to marshal major productions under her own baton
Ichi the Killer’s Scar Couture
Ichi the Killer transcends gangster archetypes, becoming a model of how agony can be elevated to art and self-destruction a powerful form of self-expression.
Marebito’s Unnerving Subterranean Horror
Sharing stylistic and thematic similarities with other enigmatic Japanese horror films the Lovecraftian Marebito prioritizes mood, mystery, and existential dread over conventional thrill.
Kenji Mizoguchi and the Cinema of Obfuscation
There’s something intriguingly inhospitable about a Kenji Mizoguchi film. We are invited in and then made to feel uncomfortable.
Yasujiro Ozu Explores the Cost of Eliminating Conflict
Criterion's Blu-ray re-release of Tokyo Story situates it in the context of Yasujiro Ozu's life and career, his most accessible work, yet one which still holds back secrets.
‘Yasujiro Ozu: The Gangster Films’ Combines Hollywood Gangsters with Japanese Sensibilities
Each entry in Yasujiro Ozu: The Gangster Films embodies that curious Ozu-esque mix of generic Hollywood drama, Japanese morality, and social commentary and abstract storytelling.
Japanese Drama ‘The Ballad of Narayama’ Is Both Universal and Distant
In his experimental film The Ballad of Narayama, Keisuke Kinoshita turns a folk tale into an artificial spectacle that combines kabuki theater with bittersweet storytelling