Somai shoots this artful Nikkatsu Roman Porno effort with trademark long takes, fusing eroticism with a sense of fate and lingering despair in the sexual encounters between a suicidal man and a woman prostituting herself for the first time.
Somai captures both the energy and inquisitiveness of youth, and the resignation of the aged, as three boys’ encounter with a lonely old man brings about changed perspectives toward life and death.
Somai’s tender and transformative masterwork, about a child grappling with her parents’ divorce, boasts an extraordinary acting debut by Tomoko Tabata, capturing the emotional, physical and psychological aspects of separation with such empathy.
The Japanese master’s greatest achievement, this is an anime of endless imagination and hypnotic power, winning the coveted Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
The US version features clunky news segments that spell out the spectacle, but when the two kaijus are pitted like pro-wrestlers with comical moves, the movie somewhat works on a childlike level with its reliance on rear projection and miniature toys.
Friends commit suicide or disappear in this eerie, prophetic J-Horror essential as Kurosawa shows how the web would exacerbate collective angst and loneliness as ghosts are stuck in liminal spaces between the afterlife and reality, mediated by the digital screen.
This skippable sequel sees Godzilla amusingly battling with a monster for the first time, laying the 1v1 blueprint for the future, but production problems and a rushed job mar the experience.
Absorbing, hilarious and fun, Miyazaki’s feature debut is solid in terms of storytelling and is flat-out entertaining, leveraging on the popular exploits of master thief, Lupin the Third.
More political than it appears to be, Sora’s first narrative feature explores the punitive impact of heightened school surveillance as several students rebel against oppression in an increasingly destabilised Japanese society.
An exquisite and meditative biopic about a Japanese tea master who became influential with the shoguns during the 16th century as Teshigahara conflates the personal with the political in a beguiling way.
Eternality Tan 