Last Hurrah for Chivalry is aptly titled: what begins as a fairly typical revenge narrative gradually evolves into a dark, subversive...

I’ve been meaning to better acquaint myself with Hong Sang-soo’s work for quite a while now. Granted, that’s no easy task; he’s among the...

If you’ve seen one film inspired by playwright Monzaemon Chikamatsu's work, you’ve pretty much seen them all. Gonza the Spearman, Night...

Let’s get this out of the way: the premise of Sailor Suit and Machine Gun is patently absurd. No self-respecting yakuza family—no matter...

The fateful first encounter between the co-protagonists of Bound—Jennifer Tilly’s femme (albeit not necessarily fatale) mob moll Violet...

Why wasn’t I notified that A Page of Madness is currently streaming on Prime Video? This essential work of Japanese silent cinema has...

[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...