Review: Death Shadows
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] The Criterion Channel’s synopsis of Hideo Gosha’s Death Shadow’s...
The ramblings of a wannabe cineaste. Join me as I dissect the art of storytelling in films, comics, TV shows, and video games.
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] The Criterion Channel’s synopsis of Hideo Gosha’s Death Shadow’s...
[The following review contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] A Cynthia Rothrock vehicle is currently featured on the front page of the...
AKUTAGAWA opens with the construction of a puppet. As the eponymous author writes feverishly, pausing only to puff on his cigarette and...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] In An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe...
Nearly a decade after being fired by Nikkatsu for his “incomprehensible” style, Seijun Suzuki returned to the studio system to direct A...
[The following review contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera has been adapted to other media...
Under certain circumstances, even the most familiar of spaces can seem utterly terrifying. When you’re trapped in your own home for weeks...
Like The Shape of Water and First Reformed, Broker is a cinematic Rosetta Stone, clarifying the central themes that pervade Hirokazu...
[The following review contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] Based solely on the list of Hideo Gosha titles available on the Criterion...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] In the opening scene of Shunji Iwai’s April Story, a college-bound...
The protagonist of Shunji Iwai’s All About Lily Chou-Chou frequently claims that the eponymous (fictional) musician draws inspiration...
As I watched Japan Society’s recent screening of Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?, I gradually realized that I...
Plan 75 expands one of Ten Years Japan’s short segments—itself a modernized (albeit extremely loose) adaptation of The Ballad of...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] An early scene in No Longer Human—a biopic revolving around the...
Today, following an interminably long absence (thanks in large part to the cancellation of this year’s Japan Cuts, which absolutely...
The story of Toho’s Frankenstein vs. Baragon begins towards the tail end of World War II. With the fall of the Third Reich on the...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] In addition to being a dedicated police officer, the protagonist of...
[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] From the operatic, post-apocalyptic thrills of the Mad Max series...
From Lu Over the Wall to Ride Your Wave, animator Masaaki Yuasa’s films have always involved songs to some extent, but Inu-Oh is the...
Belle is Mamoru Hosoda’s most artistically accomplished work to date. As a longtime fan of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer...