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Mark Schilling

Suzuka Chinzei (right) plays a school counselor dealing with a string of deaths in horrormeister Takashi Shimizu’s “Sana: Play With Me.”

CULTURE / Film

Jul 17, 2026

‘Sana: Play With Me’ can’t recapture the simple scares of J-horror’s glory days

The latest film by J-horror director Takashi Shimizu (best known for “Juon: The Grudge“) starts with an intriguing premise but becomes overblown by its third act.

Shota Sometani stars as the assistant manager of a fictional convenience store chain in Yusuke Iwasaki’s “AnyMart.”

CULTURE / Film

Jul 10, 2026

‘AnyMart’: A surreal parable about the dark side of convenience stores

Yusuke Iwasaki’s debut feature starts off as an observational comedy before being subsumed by creeping dread and shock horror.

Yutaka Mizutani directs and stars in his fourth feature film, an omnibus about love, loneliness and everything in between.

CULTURE / Film

Jul 3, 2026

‘Piccola Felicita’: From formulaic drama to fever dream

Directed by Yutaka Mizutani, the four-part omnibus looks at love and loneliness in the big city, with some unexpected twists and turns.

Hayato Kohsaka (right) plays a violent teenager whose potential for redemption is the core inquiry in Keisuke Yoshida’s “Unchained.”

CULTURE / Film

Jun 26, 2026

‘Unchained’ presents a grim portrait of a budding psychopath

Keisuke Yoshida’s gritty drama concerns the misdeeds of a violent teenager and an ex-con’s efforts to rehabilitate him.

Budding artists Madoka (Mariko Ito, left) and Kazuma (Kai Inowaki) find themselves tangled up in a multiverse while at the movies in “You Are the Film.”

CULTURE / Film

Jun 19, 2026

‘You Are the Film’ offers a multiverse on a microbudget

Set in a real-life corner of Tokyo’s Shimokitazawa neighborhood, Makoto Ueda’s debut feature takes a refreshingly analog approach to a familiar concept.

Before Meiko Kaji’s hyperviolent action movies in the 1970s attracted a cult following, she made great efforts to learn the ropes of the entertainment industry.

CULTURE / Film

Jun 12, 2026

Meiko Kaji studied hard to smolder on screen

The star of “Lady Snowblood” and other 1970s action films looks back on the serendipities that shaped her early career — and her dogged determination to hone her craft.

Virginie Efira (left) and Tao Okamoto play two women in crisis drawn together by happenstance in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden.”

CULTURE / Film

Jun 11, 2026

‘All of a Sudden’: A tender triumph from Ryusuke Hamaguchi

The director’s award-winning film is a poignant study of the human condition built around the chemistry of its two leads, Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto.

Yuki Katayama shines as the titular character in “Fujiko,” written and directed by Taichi Kimura and loosely based on his mother’s experiences in 1970s and ’80s Japan.

CULTURE / Film

Jun 6, 2026

‘Fujiko’ is a stirring portrayal of a scrappy single mom

Yuki Katayama shines as the titular character in “Fujiko,” a film about a woman’s quest for autonomy in the 1970s and ‘80s.

“Fujiko” stars Yuki Katayama (left) as a scrappy single mother who fights for her autonomy in 1970s and ’80s Japan.

CULTURE / Film

Jun 5, 2026

‘Fujiko’ transforms a mother’s resilience into festival gold

Fresh off a major festival win and new international distribution deals, Taichi Kimura reflects on the deeply personal project that honors his mother’s perseverance.

Koshi Mizukami (right) plays a rookie police detective who teams up with a South Korean counterpart (Jung Yunho) to tackle an international crime syndicate in the Kabukicho red-light district.

CULTURE / Film

May 29, 2026

Crime and comic antics abound in ‘Tokyo Burst: The Roundup’

Set in the same universe as a hit South Korean series, “Tokyo Burst: The Roundup” mashes up a cartoonish aesthetic with gripping violence.

A killer (Jiro Sato, center) cursed with the ability to make objects held in his right hand invisible terrorizes strangers in "Nameless."

CULTURE / Film

May 28, 2026

‘Nameless’: Cursed killer goes wild in uneven thriller

Director Hideo Jojo borrows from horror classics while pitting Jiro Sato’s unhinged killer against a dogged veteran cop.

Shota Sometani plays a physician with an unsettling approach to elder care in “The A-Care: Disusebody.”

CULTURE / Film

May 15, 2026

Japan’s aging anxieties fuel the disturbing logic of ‘The A-Care: Disusebody’

Amputation as eldercare makes for an unnerving premise, but Koki Yoshida’s bleak drama is most effective in its quiet plausibility.

Tadanobu Asano delivers a career-defining performance as the unhinged Masao Kakihara in “Ichi the Killer.”

CULTURE / Film

May 11, 2026

4K restoration sharpens the madness of ‘Ichi the Killer’

Part gorefest, part dark comedy, Takashi Miike’s cult shocker remains one of the director’s most unforgettable films.

In “Kyoto Hippocrates,” Kuranosuke Sasaki plays a country doctor practicing Western medicine in the late Edo Period (1603-1868).

CULTURE / Film

May 8, 2026

‘Kyoto Hippocrates’: A genial look at medicine’s early days in Japan

Akira Ogata’s warmhearted drama mixes medical history, culture clash and gentle humor into an enlightening look at modern medicine’s beginnings.

Akio Fujimoto’s film follows two siblings (Muhammad Shofik Rias Uddin, left, and Shomira Rias Uddin) who maintain a sense of play through a perilous journey.

CULTURE / Film

Apr 27, 2026

‘Lost Land’: A Rohingya odyssey viewed with startling immediacy

Shot with nonprofessional Rohingya actors, Akio Fujimoto’s film follows two siblings through a perilous journey, where survival depends as much on strangers as on luck.

A mild-mannered trading company employee (Issei Takahashi) finds out that he is married to a complete stranger in “Rhapsody, Rhapsody.”

CULTURE / Film

Apr 17, 2026

‘Rhapsody, Rhapsody’ falters between rom-com whimsy and psychodrama

Director Go Riju sets up a mismatched pair, but the film’s tonal swings make their uneasy connection hard to fully invest in.

Decades after the death of her teenage crush, a woman (Haruka Ayase) decides to pour her unresolved feelings into a written message in “One Last Love Letter.”

CULTURE / Film

Apr 10, 2026

‘One Last Love Letter’: A wistful throwback to romance in the age of texts

Yuya Ishii’s drama leans into familiar tropes but delivers a tender reminder of the power of words left unsaid for too long.

A housewife (Rena Tanaka) turns to a life of crime and adrenaline in “How to Steal the Gold.”

CULTURE / Film

Apr 3, 2026

‘How to Steal the Gold’ spins real crime into playful heist fun

A seemingly ordinary life unravels in surprising ways in Takayuki Kayano’s character-driven crime comedy.

A high school senior (Soma Santoki, left) who was once an avid basketball player is forced to give up his passion to look after his ailing mother (Miho Kanno) in “90 Meters.”

CULTURE / Film

Mar 30, 2026

‘90 Meters’ tempers the strain of caregiving with reassuring glow

Shun Nakagawa’s semi-autobiographical drama depicts the toll of caregiving on a teenage boy, offering a compassionate portrait that smooths some of life’s rougher edges.

Kabukicho is a dangerous world for the kids who drift there looking for a place to belong in Ren Akiba’s “Tokyo Strayers.”

CULTURE / Film

Mar 19, 2026

Kabukicho’s streets turn perilous in ‘Tokyo Strayers’

Kabukicho may be packed with tourists today, but Ren Akiba’s film shows how the streets can still be unforgiving for runaway teens.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

For many people, utility poles and power lines have become such a familiar part of Japan’s landscape that they often go unnoticed.

Why Japan’s utility poles won’t be disappearing anytime soon

By Alex K.T. Martin

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