Tag: Jasper Sharp

May 24, 2017 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. Eureka Entertainment’s dual-format release of Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master (1978) is the first time his breakthrough hit has been made available on Blu-ray. Dubbed, re-edited, cropped and bastardised in so many other ways during its various excursions outside its home turf, be they theatrical screenings, TV broadcasts or on VHS, the 4K […]

February 12, 2017 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. It was only last year that the Japan Foundation UK began including documentaries in its annual touring film season, with Aya Hanabusa’s intimate depiction of a family of butchers descended from the stigmatised buraku class, Tale of a Butcher Shop (2013), the first to be included in the line-up. This year, we […]

February 3, 2017 · 0 comments

Jasper Sharp crunches the numbers. On 25th January, the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, or Eiren, released the Japanese box office figures for 2016, affording us our regular annual opportunity to cast our eyes back with an anime-centric overview of the trends and developments over the past twelve months and predict what they might […]

January 19, 2017 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. The Japan Foundation’s annual touring film programme rolls out in venues across the country from 3rd February to 29th March 2017, presenting a glimmer of sunshine at the end of another gloomy British winter for film fans. This year’s season is even more welcome than most, given the distribution prospects for Asian […]

December 11, 2016 · 0 comments

By Jasper Sharp. It has been several decades since Martin Scorsese first professed a desire to film Silence (Chinmoku), Shusaku Endo’s Tanizaki Prize-winning 1966 novel about the persecution of “hidden Christians” (kakure kirishitan) in 17th-century Japan. The story follows the Portuguese Jesuit missionary, Padre Rodrigues, after he is dispatched eastwards from Macao, arriving in 1639 […]