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.
Category: Youth
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.
New Group (2025) review [Japannual 2025]
Yuta Shimotsu delivers a narrative that, in all probability. will be called the first true J-horror classic of the current decade.
How Dare You? (2025) review [Camera Japan Festival]
With her narrative, Mipo O delivers one of the most convincing arguments to parents to create space for the subjectivity of their child and to take their signifiers – their pleasures, pressures, worries, fights, and frustrations – seriously.
The Killer Goldfish (2025) review [Camera Japan Festival]
An absurd brutal supernatural fantasy that has the potential to become a cult-favourite.
Dawn Chorus (2025) review [OAFF 2025]
A beautiful meditative narrative about the struggles of becoming subject that will resonate with many.
There Was A Father (1942) review
A quintessential Ozu narrative that, despite its age, still succeeds in engaging the spectator.
Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey (2025) review [Fantasia film Festival]
Seki offers audiences a touching fictionalized account of Akiko Higashimura’s relationship with her mentor Kenzo Hidaka.
Honeko Akabane’s Bodyguards (2024) review [Fantasia Film Festival]
Ishikawa delivers an engaging narrative with some satisfying twists, many funny moments, and pleasing action-sequences.
Rewrite (2025) review [Fantasia Film Festival]
Daiga Matsui’s narrative ultimately develops into something that expands beyond mere romance, a surprising and highly satisfying time-loop drama.
River Returns (2025) review [Nippon Connection 2025]
Masakazu Kaneko convinces the spectator to go beyond the consumptive way of interacting with the other and have more eye and ear for the subjectivity of the Other.
Yoyogi Johnny (2025) review [OAFF 2025]
Kimura’s choice to give the tragical dimension of love a deadpan comical twist pays off, creating a unique narrative that will resonate with youth and those who have kept in touch with their younger self
V. Maria (2025) review [OAFF 2025]
The neatly interwoven narrative fabric, which evokes the dimension of loss in various forms, beautifully sketches out the importance for the subject to construct a narrative to support and jump-start one’s coming-into-being.
psychocinema 