Tag: cinema

November 21, 2021 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Despite the title, which immediately and perhaps unjustly evokes Jasper Sharp’s magisterial Behind the Pink Curtain, Norman England’s Behind the Kaiju Curtain: A Journey onto Japan’s Biggest Film Sets is not an exhaustive account of an entire genre. Instead, it is a very personal snapshot of one man’s interaction with the Japanese […]

November 15, 2021 · 0 comments

By Andrew Osmond. Fans of Perfect Blue are recommended to catch a new animated psycho-drama feature, Climbing, that is screening on 18th November as part of the London Korean Film Festival. Like Perfect Blue, Climbing is about a young woman for whom reality starts to skew. Se-hyeon is a dedicated sports climber, intent on glory… […]

November 5, 2021 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. The family drama is a staple of Japanese cinema and has been for many years. From the shōshimin-eiga (lower middle-class films) of the 1930s to the many masterpieces of Yasujiro Ozu, Japan has a proud lineage of reserved and moving melodramas. Funuke Show Some Love You Losers! is no such film. Based on the […]

October 30, 2021 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. The height of the tokusatsu (special-effects) era in 1960s Japan is best remembered for the slew of giant monster movies that dominated cinemas. Studio Toho’s titanic Godzilla franchise topped the box office, while competitor Daiei found success with the Gamera and Daimajin series. However, while kaiju made the headlines, this period also saw the production of many, more modestly budgeted tokusatsu films […]

October 21, 2021 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. As the 1960s wore on, Japanese filmmaker Yasuzo Masumura survived in a studio system in decline. Financial strictures meant that the director’s projects had scaled down in recent years, though the cinematic explorations at the core of his work remained in sharp focus. A prime example of this is his 1969 film, Blind […]