Genki Kawamura delivers an engaging and visually arresting psychological horror narrative that takes the concept of liminality to its anthropological origin.
Author: pvhaecke
Golden Kamuy (2024) review
Shigeaki Kubo reaffirms that he has the skill and talent to bring action-driven narratives to life in a satisfactorily way.
Undead lovers (2024) review
Matsui delivers a heartwarming romance narrative that, due to its fresh approach to certain tropes of the genre, rises above the common derivative romance drivel Japan usually produces.
A Girl named Ann (2024) review
One of most upsetting confrontations with the way the societal and familial Other can fail the subject.
Cloud (2024) review
Kurosawa delivers a biting critique of way capitalism and consumerism has transformed our subjectivity and the way we interact with others.
Renoir (2025) review
Chie Hayakawa delivers an incredible moving experience that succeeds in exploring the difficulty for the subject to deal with death and the loss it introduces.
HappyEnd (2024) review
An incredible tour-de-force that hits home.
My Sunshine (2024) review
A bittersweet celebration of youth – seishun, celebrates the importance of the encounter and of desire, the force that pushes the subject towards inter-subjective connection.
Teki Cometh (2024) review [Camera Japan Festival]
A vivid and mesmerising experience that does not only illustrates the subjective impact of increased isolation on giving meaning to one’s own life – on the stability of the frame of one’s ego.
The Gesuidouz (2024) review [Japannual 2025]
While the concatenation of deadpan comical moments succeeds in charming audiences, Ugana’s narrative falls flat in the last half-hour.
Evil Does not Exist (2023) review
Ryusuke Hamaguchi offers a highly meditative exploration of the position of violence within the natural Real and the human symbolic, the realm of speech.
Red Peony Gambler: Gambler’s Obligation (1969)
What invites us to qualify Suzuki’s narrative as a classic is not simply his continuation of Yamashita’s visual adoration of Junko Fuji, but his effective transformation of the Ninkyo thread into an exploration of the transgressive nature of desire as such.
The Young Strangers (2024) review [Camera Japan Festival 2025]
Uchiyama delivers a masterpiece that does not merely grab the spectator by his throat, but confronts him with the fundamental importance of the signifier in a heartrending way.
The Harbor lights (2025) review [Japannual 2025]
The beauty of Harbor Lights lies in its ability to invite the spectator to think through the dynamic of inter-generational trauma – the dimension of loss – and the destabilizing effect of (structural) discrimination long after the credits have faded.
The Invisible Half (2025) review [Japannual 2025]
Masaki Nishiyama’s message resounds clearly: embrace your Otherness, despite all the societal hammers seeking to hammer you, the nail that sticks out, down.
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