Having come up through the ranks at Fuji TV as both a producer and a director, Hideo Gosha still faced a huge divide between those that worked in the honoured tradition of cinema and those working in that new upstart fad called Television. In fact, this well regarded director would […]
Japan
20 Movies for Japanuray
Between Social Media and Marketing agencies, Japanuary is one of these traditions that happen every year, in which people portmanteau months to programme month long sessions into a particular movement – or, in this case, national cinema – into their cinematic diet. Giallo January is another common theme that people […]
World Noir Vol. 1 (1957-59) Long May These Radiance Boxsets Continue (Review)
It was the French critic Nino Frank who famously first applied the term ‘film noir’ to the series of hardboiled Hollywood crime pictures that finally appeared in France after the Occupation. He was acting under the influence of the acclaimed, and rightfully famous, Gallimard crime fiction imprint Série noire – […]
Elegant Beast (1962) – A Capitalist Nightmare in Post-war Japan
Typhoon Club (1985) – Raging emotions and worries about adulthood [Review]
Typhoon Club is based off a screenplay by Yuji Kato, director Shinji Sōmai crafts a coming of age tale without sentimentality for its disaffected youths. This is made clear in the opening scene as teenage girls having an infectious dance party at the swimming pool turn their attentions onto Akira […]
The Fall of Ako Castle (1978) Fukusaku gives Historical Epic the Yakuza Papers treatment (Review)
On January 31st 1703, 47 Ronin committed seppuku (ritualistic suicide) having enacted revenge for the death of their master. Their feats of bravery, honour, loyalty and resolve have become the stuff of legend. It is woven into the very fabric of Japanese society and is heralded as the ultimate display […]
Door / Door 2 (1988/1991): the high art of gut-level sleaze (Review)
What kind of films would be produced by a production house called the Directors Company? In a Western context, you could hazard a guess: serious-minded auteur films, unblemished by the crudities of genre, devoted to an artist’s personal vision. The Directors Company that existed in Japan from 1982 to 1992 […]
The Guard from Underground (1992): Kiyoshi’s Kurosawa’s Brutal Nineties Slasher (Review)
Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa has explored a variety of genres in a career spanning over forty years, and this release of his fourth feature, The Guard from Underground, demonstrates that his confidence in genre-hopping came early on. The film begins as a work-based drama, but gradually shifts into slasher horror as […]
Ringu (1998) Bone-Chilling Horror Backed Up With Intricate, Genius Stoytelling (Review)
My only previous experience with reviewing Japanese live-action cinema is two films released by Arrow Video in 2021: The Invisible Man Appears and The Human Fly. I remember my main issue with them was their attempt to capitalise on a lot of American successes with sci-fi and horror, without stamping […]
My Mother’s Eyes (Frightfest 2023)(Review)
For an entire generation of horror fans, the movies that came out of Japan around the turn of the millennium were crucial stopovers in our journey of cinematic discovery. They fell under the collective-yet-reductive umbrella of “J-Horror”, which had slowly burned out by the mid-’00s, but in 2023 the smouldering […]