REEL JAPAN
Insights into Japanese cinema and television
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5 Episodes Small Town Police Handle International Crimes With the Fate of Okinawa At Stake This moody historical detective miniseries pours fire and ice on a ticking clock. The fire comes in the form of Aoki Munetaka who plays a headstrong and reckless young Okinawan detective who is justifiably distrustful of authority. The ice comes…
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The Duffer Brothers bring us right into the action, which unfolds across four very different landscapes: suburban Hawkins, the military/twisted science industrial landscape, the moldy vegetative Upside Down, and an intriguing dreamier landscape of the Upside Down. Stranger Things has always put Hopper and Eleven at the center of their military and ESP science environs…
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Hulu: 2 Seasons Potentially more damaging to the Japanese tourism industry than any other production, Gannibal tells the story of a policeman from the city who takes a job in an isolated mountain village. It is hardly a spoiler to say: accusations of cannibalism haunt this village. Gannibal, which is based on a popular manga,…
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Netflix, 1 season, 6 episodes Fujii Michihito, veteran director of the big and small screen, helms this project. He is best known for realistic thrillers like FACELESS, THE VILLAGE, and HARD DAYS (all excellent) as well as intriguing television dramas like THE JOURNALIST. I was surprised to see his name attached to this project because…
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Starring Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Tony Goldwyn, Koyuki, Hiroyuki Sanada, Timothy Spall, Billy Connolly The paradox of THE LAST SAMURAI and the two adaptations of SHOGUN: If you don’t know Japanese history, they intrigue and they invite you in. If you do know Japanese history, these pseudo-histories disappoint. There is nothing in them which is…
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Slow and steady, this quirky samurai film by Shigemichi Sugita moves inexorably to its bittersweet conclusion. At the center of this tale is a disabled and dependent warrior. His life has been a string of disappointments and near misses with happiness. Especially afflicted by bad luck in his relationships with women, his love for his…
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A War Film of Quiet Introspection Two scenes stand out for their metaphorical poetry: Near the beginning, our protagonist, an elder samurai, explains to an inquisitive young lady that he admires crows because they always fly towards the sun. Worried, she admonishes him that he will go blind if he also gazes at the sun.…
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This film appears to have a message, and director Takashi Koizumi tries very hard to show rather than tell it. The cast ranges in age from schoolchildren to nono-generians and Koizumi has herded them into the mountains near Nagano, taking care to film across four seasons. What slowly unfurls like a fiddlehead in June is…
REEL JAPAN 