Tag: cinema

September 6, 2022 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. There are many paths one might take through the vast and varied terrain of Japanese cinema. Peter Cowie’s addition to the ever-expanding range of publications on a subject – so thoroughly pioneered, surveyed and demarcated by fans, pundits and scholars alike over the decades – provides cause for thought that there is […]

August 12, 2022 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. One of the carriages on the Kyoto shinkansen is a mauve hellscape of high-pitched voices and big eyes, devoted to the irritating but mercifully fictional anime mascot character Momonga. Every now and then the duelling assassins in David Leitch’s Bullet Train have to traverse it, subject to invasive entreaties to be someone’s […]

July 26, 2022 · 0 comments

By Tom Wilmot. Nearly fifty years after he re-emerged from the jungle, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda remains a fascinating and controversial figure. The World War II soldier famously surrendered in 1974, having held out on the small Filipino island of Lubang for the better part of thirty years, convinced that Japan’s conflict with the Allies was […]

July 20, 2022 · 0 comments

by Jeremy Clarke. An army nurse is sent to China in director Yasuzo Masumura’s Red Angel (1966). Or as a slogan in one of the film’s trailers puts it, “on the battlefield where life and death is decided.”

July 17, 2022 · 0 comments

By Jonathan Clements. Supposedly, life has returned to normal in the lands of Aquafa, but there are still unwelcome echoes of the past. The Empire of Zol maintains garrisons of soldiers on Aquafan territory, and plunders the nation’s riches for its own ends. But a new threat arises, fighting the Zolians on an unexpected front. […]