A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Reviews of films from Japan.
Yoshitsugu Tanaka, “Entotsuya Peroo” (1930) Known also as “Chimney Sweep Peroo”, this unusual animated film made in 1930 relies on silhouette or shadow animation to tell…
Yuichi Kondo, “Ryoko’S Qubit Summer” (2018) Here is a sweet film about an unusual love affair between an AI researcher and an AI creation. In the…
Yoshitaro Kataoka, “Danemon’s Monster Hunt at Shojoji / Shojoji no tanuki-bayashi Dan Dan’emon” (1935) While looking for something else on Youtube, I found this uncaptioned short…
Yasujiro Ozu, “Tokyo Story / Tokyo monogatari” (1953) Under the precise and careful direction of Yasujiro Ozu, this family soap opera becomes a character study of…
French and French-language Films, Japanese Films
Hirokazu Kore-eda, “The Truth” (2019) Ironically truth is the one thing going missing in this gentle French comedy about a family whose members use lies and…
Q-rais, “The Lost Breakfast” (2015) Where some cartoonists treat the weekday early morning ritual of getting up and getting ready to go to work, including the…
Japanese Films, Russian and Soviet Films
Artyom Somov, “Dying Alone: Kodokushi, Japan’s epidemic of isolation through the eyes of a ‘lonely death’ cleaner” (RT.com, March 2019) Since 1945, the increasing Westernisation of…
Hirokazu Kore-eda, “Shoplifters / Manbiki Kazoku” (2018) In this slow realist drama about an impoverished family in Tokyo, surviving by its wits through a combination of…
Satoshi Kon, “Tokyo Godfathers” (2003) No, this ain’t no cult yakuza film – though yakuza types do appear for a short while – but instead this…
Japanese Films, North American Films
Shinji Aramaki, “Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars” (2017) Multiplying not quite as fast as the enemy Arachnids did in the original Paul Verhoeven “Starship Troopers” film…