Japan Cuts 2020: BEYOND THE NIGHT Review
Beyond the Night offers an engaging, psychosexual tug-of-war that’s torn from the pages of Bergman.
Beyond the Night offers an engaging, psychosexual tug-of-war that’s torn from the pages of Bergman.
Fukushima 50 sees Japanese cinema address the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster in the most direct manner to date. It does not go well.
A lo-fi, lackadaisical, existential odyssey through the forest that embraces its weirdness with an absurd edge.
Nobuhiko Obayashi rounds out his career of wonderfully inventive filmmaking with an anti-war epic worthy of his legacy.
Three guys, making music, just vibing in the summer — On-Gaku: Our Sound is a whole mood of a movie that is quite unforgettable.
“The latest from controversial documentarian Tatusya Mori tackles freedom of the Japanese press in a dense, challenging manner.”
Isoko Mochizuki has been on the fast track to becoming akin to a “celebrity journalist” in the past few years. Her 2017 memoir The
Taking a frank look at the state of sex work in Japan today, Life: Untitled is a virulent screed against exploitation too bitter for its own good.
Like a heist comedy from the 1980s, Special Actors shows director Ueda’s manically meta genre filmmaking still bears fruit.
A love letter to the little guys on the movie set, Extro thinks the world of the lowly extra.
With a narrative that feels uncomfortably ripped from the headlines, The Journalist reinforces the need for a critical and independent media through the tense lens of a bureaucratic thriller.
The rise of Japanese chess enthusiast Shoji Segawa into the cutthroat professional world makes for some predictable yet crowd-pleasing fare.
Drifting through radical tonal shifts with ease, Melancholic is a quirky tale of murder and a quarter-life crisis that confidently hails a fresh directing talent.
An exercise in baiting and switching, Jesus promises a quirky faith parable but delivers a sterile and derivative coming-of-age tale.
Erica 38 may be based on a true story, but that doesn’t stop it from being flaccid and tedious.
Like an insane descent into the dreary streets of Tokyo’s gang-ruled underground, Shinya Tsukamoto’s Bullet Ballet is a landmark entry in Japan’s punk-film movement.
Weighed down by a poorly handled mystery plot, Red Snow is an airless exploration of repressed trauma and past guilt that is just too dour to follow.