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Tag - ryuichi-hiroki

 
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July 25, 2026
 

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RYUICHI HIROKI

A shy transfer student (Kento Nagao, right) is befriended by a popular girl at his high school in ¡°The Sickness Unto Love.¡±
CULTURE / Film
Oct 16, 2025
¡®The Sickness Unto Love¡¯: Teen romance spirals into dark cruelty
Behind the soft glow of young love, Ryuichi Hiroki¡¯s drama exposes the brutal games teenagers play.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 1, 2022
¡®Phases of the Moon¡¯: A thoughtful yet unconvincing tale of rebirth
Ryuichi Hiroki¡¯s melodrama about reincarnation adeptly navigates multiple timelines with a sensitive touch while revealing unspoken Japanese beliefs.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 24, 2022
¡®Motherhood¡¯: More soap opera than psychological thriller
Erika Toda and Mei Nagano offer contrasting perspectives on a frosty parent-child relationship in Ryuichi Hiroki¡¯s ¡°Motherhood.¡±
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 10, 2022
¡®2 Women¡¯: Shinobu Terajima shines as celebrated novelist
The actress gives a luminous performance as a fictional version of Jakucho Setouchi, an author turned Buddhist nun, in Ryuichi Hiroki¡¯s biopic.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 13, 2022
¡®Noise¡¯: A web of lies imbued with style and pathos
Ryuichi Hiroki¡¯s film about three men entangled in a web of lies and murder to protect their island community is a departure from the director¡¯s usual romantic dramas and indie fare.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 8, 2021
Sex, murder and a getaway car: ¡®Ride or Die¡¯ stars go on the trip of a lifetime
Kiko Mizuhara and Honami Sato discuss the challenges of bringing Ching Nakamura¡¯s harrowing, sexually explicit manga to the screen in a provocative new Netflix movie.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 17, 2018
¡®It¡¯s Boring Here, Pick Me Up¡¯: A rural road movie with no destination
What passes for countryside in Japan is often a vast sprawl of low-rise development: chain restaurants, big-box stores, gas stations and pachinko parlors. While there¡¯s no shortage of films that have tried to capture the ennui of life in such areas, the results are often as uninspiring as the locations...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 20, 2017
A courtroom drama, an alien takeover and the lives of sex workers all feature in the best Japanese films of 2017
This year was bad for Japanese films box office-wise, but not quality-wise. Here are my best 10:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 20, 2017
¡®The Miracles of the Namiya General Store¡¯: Nostalgia-fueled tears are on sale at this shop
Japanese critics are calling ¡°The Miracles of the Namiya General Store¡± the ¡°most tear-inducing¡± story ever adapted from a Keigo Higashino novel. The best-selling author has penned such sensations as the thrillers ¡°The Devotion of Suspect X¡± and ¡°Journey Under the Midnight Sun,¡± but ¡°Namiya¡± went a different...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 19, 2017
Director Ryuichi Hiroki discusses ¡®Side Job.¡¯ and the changing feelings Fukushima evokes
Interviews with Japanese directors tend to be straightforward PR exercises. The subjects may be friendly, but they are also disinclined to deviate from their script, especially if they are on their umpteenth media interview of the day.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 19, 2017
¡®Side Job.¡¯ presents an authentic portrayal of life in Fukushima after disaster
The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 and its aftermath have been the focus of many films, both fiction and nonfiction. However, most of them have been by filmmakers who¡¯ve come from outside Fukushima Prefecture, where the disaster hit hardest.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 18, 2016
¡®Wolf Girl and Black Prince¡¯: The dogged persistence of teen love
Girls go for bad, abusive guys, while relegating nice, decent ones to the dreaded ¡°friend zone¡°: A misogynistic lie or the cold, hard truth? Ryuichi Hiroki¡¯s ¡°Wolf Girl and Black Prince¡± seems to say the latter, starting with its premise. A naive, socially inept high school girl agrees to become the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 18, 2015
The mysterious attraction of an aging, domineering chauvinist
Love never was and never will be logical. Your 20-year-old daughter rolls her eyes at May-December romances in the movies ¡ª until she gets engaged to a 50-year-old guy. And you will declaim loud and long against her choice, until you start dating a 20-year-old yourself. I am speaking in a general way,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 28, 2015
Back to the love hotel for ex-pink film director
Interviews with people you know well can turn awkward if you try to be the probing questioner instead of the coffee-shop companion. No such worries with 61-year-old Ryuichi Hiroki, the former pink film (i.e., soft pornography) director who made his commercial and critical breakthrough with the erotically...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 21, 2015
Sayonara Kabukicho: Life and love in Shinjuku¡¯s red-light district
Ryuichi Hiroki has become a victim of his own success, though his studio employers probably don¡¯t see it that way. This one-time maker of so-called pink films (i.e., soft pornography), who became internationally celebrated for intimate indie dramas like ¡°Vibrator¡± from 2003 and ¡°Yawarakai Seikatsu (It¡¯s...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 29, 2013
¡®Daijobu 3kumi (Nobody¡¯s Perfect)¡¯
Teaching kids is usually not thought of as a physically taxing job, but take it from one who has done it: It is, especially in Japanese schools, where one teacher may have to deal with 40 bundles of not-always-well-behaved energy. I spent much of my class time at a Tokyo boys¡¯ high school in the 1980s...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 8, 2013
¡®Kiiroi Zo¡¯
Ryuichi Hiroki has become the go-to director for romantic dramas that quality-wise are a cut above the local formula weepers whose starred-crossed lovers are parted by a slow, beautiful death (though Hiroki¡¯s couples are hardly immune to life¡¯s vicissitudes). At the same time, his films in this genre...
Japan weighs regulating Pokemon cards amid trading mania
A Pokemon event is held in Jakarta on July 11
Head of Swiss euthanasia firm dies after collapsing while ascending Mount Fuji
Around 200,000 people typically scale the 3,776 meter Mount Fuji each year.
Indian brothers make manga debut in Japan
Two Indian brothers made their manga debut in Japan with "Kung Fu Kung Fool" ¡ª an action-comedy series that follows the adventures of a notorious thief and a young boy.
Japan scientists identify clusters of protein believed to trigger Alzheimer¡¯s disease
A team of researchers said they found a ¡°seed¡± that accelerates the amyloid beta accumulation process in the brain, naming it ¡°Peak 1 amyloid beta,¡± as seen in a mouse's brain.
A perfect storm: Kaze Fujii fans flock to Fuji Rock
Okayama-born singer-songwriter Kaze Fujii has carved out a distinctive place in Japanese pop since his major-label debut in 2019.
The sci-fi sensibilities of electronic trio Black Boboi
Black Boboi was formed in 2018 when solo artists Julia Shortreed, Utena Kobayashi and Ermhoi came together under Kobayashi¡¯s newly founded label, Bindividual.
A perfect storm: Kaze Fujii fans flock to Fuji Rock
Okayama-born singer-songwriter Kaze Fujii has carved out a distinctive place in Japanese pop since his major-label debut in 2019.
Can Japanese comedy get laughs in English? Yoshimoto Kogyo lets the jokes rip
Wes-P has millions of followers and his viral clips made him recognizable out of Japan.
The 180-day locals: Life on Japan¡¯s digital nomad visa
Christopher Flinn works remotely from Tokyo earlier this month. Japan issued 646 digital nomad visas in 2025, but tourism officials are hoping to increase that figure in the coming years, with Japan's relatively cheap cost of living and the weak yen seen as potential draws for young professionals.
Japan reveals hint of new defense spending target in fiscal blueprint
The Self-Defense Forces' Type 16 mobile combat vehicle fires during a joint live-fire drill with U.S. Marines as part of the annual Resolute Dragon exercises in Yufu, Oita Prefecture, on June 28.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo¡¯s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo¡¯s ¡®stadium of desire¡¯

Longform

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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