“A touching and satisfying tear-jerking experience.”
Category: Based on Novel
The Midnight Maiden War (2022) review
“A visually exciting experience that shows that the only revolutionary thing that can give life its worth is desire that remains desire.”
The Island Closest To Heaven (1984) review
“This might be the purest idol-film Obayashi made and the clearest example of how Kadokawa wanted to exploit the audio-visual medium.”
Skeleton Flowers (2021) review
A serene narrative that touchingly explores the possibility of reaching each other as subject despite the misrecognition that structures speech.
A Liar And a Broken Girl (2010) review
“Seta’s first narrative hits some false notes, but these cannot derail Seta’s first-feature film nor radically complicate the spectator’s pleasure.”
Last Of The Wolves (2021) review
“Kazuya Shiraishi delivers, with his sequel, another amazing and highly entertaining yakuza/police thriller.”
Giants and Toys (1958) review
A classic that, as a critique of capitalism and materialism, has not lost any of its relevance.
The Promised Land (2019) review [Nippon Connection 2021]
A beautifully composed and highly relevant narrative about destructive kinds of social violence, a social violence against the Otherness present in the community and an ostracizing violence to turn the once-trusted other into an unwanted Otherness.
My Blood and Bones in a Flowing Galaxy (2021) review [Nippon Connection 2021]
“A great narrative, due to its emotionally gripping finale and the crystal-clear manner by which Sabu explores and uncovers the impact of a vicious environment on the way the subject inscribes itself into the social fabric.”
Under The Open Sky (2020) review [Nippon Connection 2021]
“A (damning) look at the vicious and unforgiven nature of the judgmental Other as well as heartwarming emotionally rich exploration of the importance of supportive inter-subjective social bonds for the subject.”
Hotel Iris (2021) review [Osaka Asian Film Festival]
“An artfully composed erotic narrative that plays with the well-known psychoanalytic fact that the relational past of subjects impacts the possibility and appearance of sexual attraction between a man and a woman.”
Closed Ward/Family of Strangers (2019) review
While ‘Family of Strangers’ runs the risk of corroborating prejudices, Hirayama’s narrative also has the potential to make spectators think about the socially embedded nature of mental suffering,
psycho-cinematography 