REEL JAPAN
Insights into Japanese cinema and television
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Category: Uncategorized
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Based on a novel by Kakuta Mitsuyo, and thoroughly grounded in her novel’s visionary exploration of female and maternal identity, REBIRTH will take you to unexpected places. Bringing to mind several Japanese films and series about kidnapping (MISSING, MY FAMILY, SINCE I TOOK YOU), in director Narushima Izuru’s REBIRTH the emotions are the most raw…
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Score: 8/10 Wakamatsu Setsuro’s SNOW ON THE BLADE concerns the fallout from one of the most dramatic incidents in 19th century Japanese history–the assasination of Lord Ii Naosuke by a gang of revolutionaries. A powerful minister from a family who served the Tokugawa shoguns for generations, Lord Ii angered anti-westerners by agreeing to open ports…
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SCORE: 8/10 “Flipping through books so much your fingerprints wear off is a joy.” These words are spoken by a senior editor at the small Tokyo publisher at the center of this story. Based on the novel by Miura Shion, THE GREAT PASSAGE is an inspirational story about men and women who made their life’s…
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SCORE: 10/10 Based on a true story, director Takita Yojiro (DEPARTURES, WHEN THE LAST SWORD IS DRAWN) brings us an absorbing biopic about human perseverance and the struggle for science against ignorance and superstition. Okada Junichi turns in one of his finest performances as Santetsu Yasui, a young man living in the late Edo period…
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Limited series, (4 episodes) starring Kitagawa Keiko and Yoshioka Riho Strange Instruments of Mercy: A recent mystery series showcasing two young stars of Japanese cinema and television. Like an onion, peeling back its layers will make you cry. Tears of disappointment? Or tears in solidarity to these grieving and resilient characters? I have been looking…
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Director Yamashita Tomohiko helms an Edo-era heist story that is, at best, an exploration of how poor men under strain of debt turn to thuggery. At worst, it lacks enough substance, stakes, and twists, to justify its passage into cinema. In the hands of a brilliant filmmaking crew, it could have succeeded. However, good performances…
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2025 Amazon Prime Fittingly for a movie that focuses so much on the 18th century Edo government’s currency policy, IWANE, like a coin, has two sides: On one side, it is a conventional samurai film, shot brightly through modern lenses, with maximum stunt work pitting one style of swordplay against another, featuring a young warrior…
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A young man gifted in swordsmanship but short in patience begs his teacher and his lord to allow him to travel to the neighboring domain to study swordsmanship further. Meanwhile, his clan leaders fear the annihilation of their entire domain after years of hiding fields, grain warehouses, and surplus funds from the Shogunate. These two…
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Limited series starring Shibata Kyohei, Iura Arata In this cold case murder mystery, a middle aged cop finds his elder mentor is at the center of the mystery. Further, the cold case once reopened spawns new deaths. Veteran Japanese actor Shibata Kyohei, known for his former onscreen detective persona and numerous guest roles (excellent as the…
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Score: 9/10 Based on a novel by Nakayama Shichiri which chronicles the travails of two young people, Tone and Mikiko, whose world is violently wrenched from them by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami leaving them orphans and throwing them together. It also boldly tells a story of a series of grisly murders occurring years later.…
REEL JAPAN 