While there will be spectators’ who will have no trouble in letting themselves float on the film’s ‘stormy’ emotional flow from start to finish, the over-reliance on music in the second half of the film creates a melodramatic whirlpool that will leave many spectators emotionally stranded.
Category: Youth
Burn (2026) review [Japannual 2026]
Makoto Nagahisa leverages the evocative power of visuals and sounds to plunge the spectator into a subjective experience of subjects who only appear as silenced within the media, with the expulsed human ‘trash’ produced by the contemporary societal Other.
Unchained (2026) review [Camera Japan Festival 2026]
With his latest narrative, Keisuke Yoshida (Blue (2021)) turns a cinematic glance at juvenile delinquency. Yet, what urged him to tackle this societal symptom was not simply an interest, but the need to question the societal environment he grew up in and offer this result of elaboration to the audience. While Keisuke Yoshida saw…
Retake (2023) review
A heartwarming exploration of time as what creates the possibility for the signifier, enunciated or left unsaid, to sort reparative effects on the subject and his relations to others.
Woman From The Sea (1959) review
Kurahara offers a fresh take on the sun-tribe genre by disrupting the tale of post-war subjective emptiness with an element of horror – the sudden appearance of an otherworldly being.
The Convenience Store (2026) review
A straightforward horror-experience that works well for new-comers to the genre and young audiences in need for some thrills.
The Specials (2026) review [Fantasia 2026]
Uchida’s film will not win any awards, yet the film delivers what it promises and successfully pleases the spectator with its heartwarming message
Bye Bye Love (1974) review
A true classic of political cinema.
Fiamma (2025) review [Nippon Connection 2026]
With brutal elegance, Uchida develops the idea that physical reality cannot be equated with subjective truth.
All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001) review-analysis
A modern classic, one of the best, if not the best, cinematic experiences of the ‘00.
Fujiko (2026) review [Nippon Connection 2026]
An incredibly satisfying feel-good experience about personal freedom, about holding on to one’s desire within a societal field that seeks to suffocate it.
Mag Mag (2025) review [Nippon Connection 2026]
Yuriyan Retriever delivers a satisfying film of subjective growth, yet not without a highly ironic aftertaste.
Long Night (2025) review [Nippon Connection 2026]
A self-assured debut, wielding the filmic frame to stage the alienation of the contemporary subject, the failure of imaginary fictions, and the disruptive effect of avoiding Otherness,
Love Letter (1995)
Iwai’s film is not one of the greatest Japanese romance narratives, but one of the greatest films of becoming able to love again.
5 Centimeters Per Second (2025) review
The fully blossomed fruit of Makoto Shinkai’s influential animated film.