Tag: japancuts
Japan Cuts 2023 Preview: Come Celebrate the Return of All In-Person Screenings!
Japan Society's Japan Cuts: The Festival of New Japanese Film is back in its 16th year. It marks the first all in-person festival since 2019! From July 26-Aug 6, this year’s festival features over 25 films from major blockbusters to...
Japan Cuts 2021 Preview: Newcomers and Old Faves at Fest's Hybrid Edition
After last year's all online edition, Japan Cuts, North America's largest showcase for new Japanese films, has chosen to go for a combination of online and in-person screenings (at Japan Society) for their 15th edition, taking place 8/20 - 9/2....
Japan Cuts 2020: Festival Going Virtual, SPECIAL ACTORS Opening
Film festivals large and small have been faced with the same challenge in this, the year of the pandemic: delay, cancel, or go virtual? Based in New York City, and beloved home to North America's largest annual program of contemporary...
Japan Cuts 2019 Interview: BLUE HOUR's Shim Eun-kyung on Crossing Into Japanese Cinema
Debuting at age nine, Shim Eun-kyung went on to become one of South Korea’s most bankable actresses, starring in hit television dramas, and box office blockbusters like Sunny and Miss Granny. Moved by her love of Japanese cinema, Shim immigrated...
Japan Cuts 2019 Interview: Director Toyoda Toshiaki Talks Quiet Rebellion in THE MIRACLE OF CRYBABY SHOTTAN
The films of Toyoda Toshiaki are known for their brash and exciting style, laced with acid takes on society. Returning to the big screen after four years with The Miracle of Crybaby Shottan, director Toyoda shows his quieter, more contemplative...
Japan Cuts 2019 Interview: Director Tezka Macoto on Rediscovering THE LEGEND OF THE STARDUST BROTHERS
In 1985, director Tezka Macoto released a singular send-up of the Japanese entertainment industry. The Legend of the Stardust Brothers was a moussed and glittering New Wave-tastic mélange of mediums; from music, to fashion, to animation -- with zombies! So...
Japan Cuts 2019 Interview: Cut Above Winner Tsukamoto Shinya Talks KILLING and TETSUO: THE IRON MAN
From his beginnings as a 14-year-old with a Super 8 camera, to his latest film, KILLING; a twist on the classic samurai movie, Tsukamoto Shinya has always blazed his own cinematic path. Receiving Japan Cuts 2019 Cut Above award...
Japan Cuts 2019 Interview: HIS LOST NAME Director Hirose Nanako Uncovers Dark Truths
His Lost Name is the story of a young man whose mysterious presence in a small town engenders willing deceptions, and reveals uncomfortable truths. At Japan Cuts 2019, director Hirose Nanako spoke exclusively with LMD about creating her first feature...
Japan Cuts 2019 Interview: DEMOLITION GIRL Director Matsugami Genta, Star Kitai Aya Talk Teenage Crushing
Demolition Girl places a coming-of-age story against the backdrop of the sketchy world of fetish videos. At Japan Cuts 2019, LMD had an exclusive chat with director Matsugami Genta and actress Kitai Aya, who has a standout performance as the...
Japan Cuts 2019 Preview: Dance the Summer Away With Great New Films
"New York, New York, a helluva town!" So declare the lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, set to music by Leonard Bernstein, in On the Town (1944), and it applies equally well today to the city that will host...
Japan Cuts 2017 Review: THE TOKYO NIGHT SKY IS ALWAYS THE DENSEST SHADE OF BLUE, A Maudlin if Earnest Tale
Like its long, declarative title, Ishii Yuya's new film is a curious work that stumbles towards earnestness. Sometimes it is poetic and ponderous. At other times it is just plain tedious and twee.
Japan Cuts 2017 Preview: A Country at a Crossroads and the Movies at the Heart of it All
Japan Cuts: The Festival of New Japanese Film comes roaring back to life for another season of fresh flicks with the ninja-samurai action epic MUMON: The Land of Stealth kicking things off July 13 at the Japan Society in New...
Japan Cuts 2017: Lineup includes Sono's ANTI-PORNO and Joe Odagiri in Person!
The 11th edition of North America's preeminent festival for contemporary Japanese Cinema slices into frame July 13 - 23 at Japan Society in New York City. Today, we have the full lineup of films and guests, including this years Cut...
Preview: Japan Cuts 2016, As Dynamic as Ever
Japan Cuts, Japan Society's annual festival of contemporary Japanese cinema, turns 10 this year. What the value of a film festival is may seem easy to talk about in terms of age and program focus. It can also be hard...
Japan Cuts 2015 Review: PIETA IN THE TOILET, A Cancer Story Told With Poetic Artistry
Pieta in the Toilet, the first fictional feature by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Matsunaga Daishi, is a two-hour drama about a young man who's dying of cancer. But fortunately, this film proves to not be nearly as depressing as that description...
NY Asian/Japan Cuts 2014 Interview: UZUMASA LIMELIGHT Captures the True Dying Art of Samurai Cinema's Kirare-Yaku
Uzumasa Limelight is a love letter to the unsung heroes of samurai cinema, the kirare-yaku; the team of actors whose job is to die spectacularly on screen, as seen through the fictional eyes of one of its true artists. We...
Japan Cuts 2014 Review: TALE OF A BUTCHER SHOP, A Sensitively Observed Documentary Of A Working-Class Family
Tale of a Butcher Shop, Hanabusa Aya's sensitively observed documentary on a family of butchers in Kaizuka City in Osaka, Japan, begins in a very startling fashion, with an unflinching depiction of a cow's slaughtering. A man leads the cow...
Japan Cuts 2014 Review: LOVE'S WHIRLPOOL Offers Potent Mix of Eroticism, Comedy, And Melancholy
Miura Daisuke (Boys on the Run) adapts his own award-winning 2005 play Love's Whirlpool into his latest film of the same name, and it is quite a remarkable and wonderfully acted film where sex is the main subject and the...
Japan Cuts 2014 Review: 0.5MM, A Darkly Comedic Probe Of Japan's Historical And Social Psyche
The remarkable Japanese director Ando Momoko expands her cinematic canvas considerably with her second feature, 0.5mm, a major highlight of this year's Japan Cuts festival. It's a deceptively small film that tackles big subjects, an intimate film with an epic three...
Japan Cuts 2014 Review: MONSTERZ, In Which Nakata Hideo Misfires With A Lackluster Remake
The slow but steady decline of the once-great Nakata Hideo (The Ring, Chaos, Dark Water) continues unabated with his latest, Monsterz. This is a remake of Haunters, the 2010 Korean film by Kim Min-seok that itself was no classic, but had...
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