Japanese Cinema - There Were No Gods Left

There Were No Gods Left

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Japanese Cinema

A collection of 11 posts

Cocoon - One Summer of Girlhood

Japanese Cinema

Cocoon - One Summer of Girlhood

Schoolgirl crushes amid wartime

Sheep in the Box

Japanese Cinema

Sheep in the Box

The future already looks bleak at times. It may get bleaker yet if our most humanistic artists continue to capitulate to their humanism.

Bullet Train Explosion

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Japanese Cinema

Bullet Train Explosion

Following his recent successes with Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman, director Shinji Higuchi takes on another franchise with Bullet Train Explosion (2025), a galvanizing legacy sequel to the 1975 Japanese film The Bullet Train.

Kubi — Takeshi Kitano [Japan Cuts ’24 Review]

Kubi — Takeshi Kitano [Japan Cuts ’24 Review]

It’s just a shame, and a stain on the film, that the arrival of a distorted Japan comes by weaponizing queer sexualities.

Year Ender: Top Ten Films of 2023

Year Ender: Top Ten Films of 2023

The best films of the year creatively resist the studio destruction of art and suppression of vision with bold statements of visual-sonic distinction

Four Films from Japan Cuts 2023

Four Films from Japan Cuts 2023

Repentance is good. At least, it is under certain conditions: it must be clear, sincere, and selfless. Most importantly, while it is always good for the morally at fault to repent, their victims can never be made to forgive their assailant. The Legend & Butterfly, the new film from director Keishi O

Under the Turquoise Sky — Kentaro [Japan Cuts ’23 Review]

Under the Turquoise Sky — Kentaro [Japan Cuts ’23 Review]

No film festival would be complete without a road movie. For the 2023 edition of Japan Cuts, the U.S. premiere of Under the Turquoise Sky checks that box. The country being traveled is Mongolia, and the stated purpose is for Takeshi (Yuya Yagir) to find a woman at his

Notes on the 27th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival

Notes on the 27th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival

We live in a digital, uber-modern world: that’s the message from the 27th Bucheon Fantastic Film Festival. Following the global trauma of pandemic isolation, the films I viewed at this year’s festival overwhelmingly pointed to the shared anxieties of a post-pandemic world, including but not limited

Late Autumn and the Great Yasujiro Ozu

Late Autumn and the Great Yasujiro Ozu

Yasujiro Ozu might be cinema’s greatest practical humanist. The great Japanese director made a career out of shomin-geki films, a genre centered on the ordinary lives of ordinary people—and he did so with a complete vision of the power of human connection. For Ozu the man, that

Sponsored Euthanasia as Dystopia in Plan 75

Sponsored Euthanasia as Dystopia in Plan 75

I can’t imagine a scenario in which a dystopian film about government sponsored euthanasia of elderly citizens could be translated successfully to the North American context. Part of what makes the best dystopias work is a root in some truth, in some deep-seated cultural anxiety, and that dystopia

Humanism and Childlike Fun in Shin Ultraman

Humanism and Childlike Fun in Shin Ultraman

I remember walking out of the theater from Iron Man (2008) as a child, pushing the tips of my fingers to their extremes in order to generate that weird tingling feeling. The gesture itself looked more Emperor Palpatine than it did Tony Stark, but by some dumb childish logic, that