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Sometimes a film’s visuals are so visceral that they overpower your eyes entirely, pulling you in and setting your other senses ablaze. The putrid smell of rancid flesh stings your nostrils as you become acquainted with the Sawyer family homestead; your teeth chatter as MacReady and Childs stare each other down in the unforgiving Antarctic snow; the unwelcomed taste of pea soup miraculously appears in your mouth soon after Regan MacNeil spews forth a torrent of the stuff into poor Father Merrin’s face. Some of the horror genre’s best entries are more than just a story that haunts you: they’re a full body experience.

Legendary renegade filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto’s debut feature, Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), shares this quality of sensual transcendence. Stifling waves of heat and humidity radiate from nearly every frame of the picture, and throughout its brisk 77-minute runtime you can’t help...

Save for exceptions like Shinya Tsukamoto‘s “Killing,” the quality of jidaigeki pictures in the past few decades is all over the place, a far cry from the 1950s and 1960s when it seemed that praiseworthy gems were a regular occurrence. Yet, Kazuya Shiraishi‘s newest picture, “Bushido,” is not only a great return to form reminiscent of the golden age of samurai cinema but an excellent film destined to be considered a classic in the years to come.

Bushido is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas

Following the completion of his politically charged tokusatsu series “Kamen Rider Black Sun” and his psychological drama “Lesson in Murder,” Kazuya Shiraishi brings viewers to feudal Japan in his first period film for a more realistic portrayal of the age of the samurai, albeit with his usual stylish direction still present. The source of influence is a classic rakugo story called “Kakunoshin Yanagida,...

In an age where runtimes can run long, there’s a lot to appreciate about a horror movie that can deliver maximum frights in 90 minutes or less. When time is in short supply, a short movie can do the trick. This week’s streaming picks are dedicated to precisely that type of movie.

If you’re in the mood for scares but don’t have much time to spare, add these five horror titles to your watchlists. As always, here’s where you can stream them this week.

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.

The Beyond – Kanopy, Midnight Pulp, Peacock, Pluto TV, Screambox

One of Lucio Fulci’s most beloved horror films and the second entry in his unofficial “Gates of Hell” trilogy hits the ground running and never eases up on the oppressive sense of dread. Set in New Orleans, a young woman (Catriona MacColl) inherits...

Japan's cinematic history is long and storied, with a variety of genres being highly influential, including the sprawling genre of yakuza movies. Not only did some of the best Japanese directors of all time make yakuza films, but some of the best Japanese actors were also featured in a number of them, showing just how prevalent the genre is in Japan. At face value, yakuza movies deal with the lives of yakuza members and how they approach the world, but the rather broad definition allows for a varied approach to making films in the genre.

Truly emerging in the 1950s, with some coming before, the yakuza genre largely based itself around post-war Japan, interested in showing how the changing political landscape could also affect organized crime in the country. With the yakuza having a strict code of honor, exploring how tradition can change rather quickly and testing what was previously thought of before,...

Considering the link between spirit and body has been one of the main themes in his work, perhaps it was only a matter of time before the Japanese director would explore the world of sports. While “Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer” already dealt with the body being altered through outside forces, in this case post-industrial culture and modernity’s obsession with physical optimization, Tsukamoto’s next project would go in a different direction. However, keen observers will quickly notice many similarities between this film and “Tokyo Fist” which may not only serve as an extension of these issues, but also as a visual allegory for the fragility of our bodies, and their connection to our spirit.

Tokyo Fist is screening at Five Flavours

Another interesting parallel, which, for example, author Tom Mes points out, is how the story of “Tokyo Fist” mirrors its director’s biography too. Even though Shinya...

Stephen King's It miniseries was one of the great horror releases of the 90s, and still terrifies audiences more than 30 years after release. Featured within In Search of Darkness 1990-1994, we have an exclusive clip with director Tommy Lee Wallace, who talks about the world's fear of clowns, and bringing Pennywise to life with Tim Curry!

Ready to explore the best of ‘90s horror films and TV? In Search of Darkness 1990-1994, a five-plus-hour documentary featuring brand-new interviews with the greatest line-up of horror icons and experts, is now available to pre-order exclusively at 90sHorrorDoc.com until Midnight Halloween (Pacific Time) on October 31st, 2024. Audiences will have their last chance to have their names alongside their favorite horror icons in the credits!

From Creatorvc, the creative minds behind the In Search of Darkness ‘80s horror trilogy and Aliens Expanded documentary, In Search of Darkness: 1990-1994 delves into an...

From the producers of the hit In Search of Darkness documentary franchise comes In Search of Darkness: 1990-1994, an all-new epic documentary that aims to be the ultimate celebration of the wacky world of 1990s horror. Horror icons John Carpenter, Heather Langenkamp, and Mike Flanagan lead the line-up of 40+ genre favorites who were interviewed for this in-depth re-assessment of the decade, and we’re debuting the official trailer this morning!

In Search of Darkness: 1990-1994, a five-plus-hour documentary featuring brand-new interviews with an incredible line-up of horror icons and experts, is now available to pre-order exclusively at 90sHorrorDoc.com until Midnight Halloween (Pacific Time) on October 31st, 2024. This is your last chance to have Your name alongside your favorite horror icons in the credits.

In Search of Darkness: 1990-1994 Purchase Options:

Isod: 1990-94 Blu-ray Package (including Blu-ray w/slipcase; 2 posters; sew-on patch; membership card; name in credits; digital...

If you are a film fan and have been following this homepage, you are undoubtedly familiar with the works of Japanese auteur Shinya Tsukamoto. While it draws from several inspirations such as the Punk movement or even the works of classic painters, Tsukamoto never fails to be unique, even in his works which rarely ever are mentioned such as the “Nightmare Detective”-series or “Kotoko“. The director himself has often referred to his features as experiences which often make the viewer feel uncomfortable and/or disgusted. Whether you like his body of work or not, his films leave a lasting impression on the viewer and we are going to take a look at some of the elements that make it unique while also hopefully drawing attention to his some of his major works and those which sometimes fall under the radar.

False Idols and heroes

If there is one thing...

It is always a pleasure to see f**ked up films, and “Full of Death” is definitely one of them, with its non-stop energy and absurd script that unfold aplenty in the 54 minutes of the movie.

on CathayPlay by clicking on the image below

A young man in Shanghai is recruiting people from the streets for a rather vague revolutionary cause against the authorities and the current style of life. Gradually, he has amassed a small group of followers, who walk around half naked with gas masks in their face. As they keep trying to bring more people to the cause, under the flaming “sermon” of their preacher, they stumble upon a woman who teaches Chinese, and who seems impervious to any kind of charm they seem to have. She also has a younger brother, whom she keeps locked in their apartment, while he is frequently delirious...

To celebrate the release of Shinya Tsukamoto’s Shadow of Fire on Blu-Ray and Digital from 30th September, we are giving away 3 Blu-Rays to lucky winners!

Shadow Of Fire Is The latest film from Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) and winner of the Netpac Award at the 80th Venice Film Festival.

Part of his War trilogy, which includes Fires On the Plain and Killing, Shinya Tsukamoto’s latest examines the desperate lives of Japanese citizens in the immediate post–World War II period through the story of a child dealing with unimaginable adversity.

Bonus Features:

• Tom Mes feature audio commentary

• “The Reality Of Violence” Video Essay by Robert Edwards

• Shinya Tsukamoto and author Kota Ishii talk event

• Director and cast cinema stage greetings

• Trailer

• Slipcase with artwork from Ian MacEwan (limited to 2000 copies)

• Region B

Shadow Of Fire is out on Blu-Ray & Digital 30th September

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The...

Tadanobu Asano is set to receive The Hollywood Reporter’s Trailblazer Award at the upcoming 37th installment of the Tokyo International Film Festival next month.

The chameleonic screen actor has been a mainstay of Japanese cinema for nearly three decades while regularly appearing in prominent supporting parts in big Hollywood productions. But his swaggering recent performance as the irascible samurai Yabushige on FX‘s smash-hit series Shogun has given him an all-new level of global recognition over the past year. In the process of becoming an indelible fan favorite, Asano also received his first Emmy nomination for the part.

THR’s Trailblazer Award, whose recent honorees include six-time Emmy winner Jean Smart, David Oyelowo, Eva Longoria, Matt Bomer, Niecy Nash-Betts and America Ferrera, is given to artists whose work and careers illuminate stories and characters who have been traditionally marginalized in Hollywood. International editor Abid Rahman will present Asano with the award on Oct.

Regardless of their artistic merit, it’s understandable that it can sometimes be difficult for mainstream cinephiles to connect with movies about twisted bodies and grisly mutations. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that these films are any less deserving of praise – it’s just that not every critic has a strong stomach. That’s why it’s so satisfying to see a production like Coralie Fargeat’s satirical body horror flick The Substance get the recognition it deserves in spite of its disturbing mean streak.

And in honor of this Demi Moore / Margaret Qualley experiment wowing highbrow audiences worldwide, we’ve decided to come up with a list recommending six other arthouse body horror flicks for your viewing pleasure! After all, there’s no reason that fine cinema should be devoid of blood and malformed guts.

For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining “arthouse” as any film...

The Criterion Channel’s at its best when October rolls around, consistently engaging in the strongest horror line-ups of any streamer. 2024 will bring more than a few iterations of their spooky programming: “Horror F/X” highlights the best effects-based scares through the likes of Romero, Cronenberg, Lynch, Tobe Hooper, James Whale; “Witches” does what it says on the tin (and inside the tin is the underrated Italian anthology film featuring Clint Eastwood cuckolded by Batman); “Japanese Horror” runs the gamut of classics; a Stephen King series puts John Carpenter and The Lawnmower Man on equal playing ground; October’s Criterion Editions are Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Hunter, Häxan; a made-for-tv duo includes Carpenter’s underrated Someone’s Watching Me!; meanwhile, The Wailing and The Babadook stream alongside a collection of Cronenberg and Stephanie Rothman titles.

Otherwise, Winona Ryder and Raúl Juliá are given retrospectives, as are filmmakers Arthur J. Bressan Jr. and Lionel Rogosin.

Exclusive: Venice Critics’ Week title Don’t Cry Butterfly has been boarded by Cj Cgv Vietnam for distribution in Vietnam.

Affiliated with Korea’s Cj Group, Cj Cgv Vietnam also distributed the Vietnamese-language Camera d’Or winner Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell last year.

Don’t Cry Butterfly follows a 45-year old housewife, Tam, who learns through live TV that her husband is having an affair. Turning to mystical means, she then attempts to voodoo her husband back into love.

The debut feature by Duong Dieu Linh will have its world premiere at the Venice Critics’ Week on September 3 before arriving at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10.

Don’t Cry Butterfly is a Vietnam-Singapore-Indonesia-Philippines co-production. Korea’s Barunson E&a picked up world sales rights to the title ahead of the Cannes market this year.

“The idea for this feature started 10 years ago, when I came back to Vietnam to make my first short film,...

Two films from legendary Japanese filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) make their way onto bluray & digital from Third Window Films!

Shadow Of Fire

Tsukamoto's latest film and winner of the Netpac Award at the 80th Venice Film Festival

Bonus Features

• Tom Mes feature audio commentary

• “The Reality Of Violence” Video Essay by Robert Edwards

• Shinya Tsukamoto and author Kota Ishii talk event

• Director and cast cinema stage greetings

• Trailer

• Slipcase with artwork from Ian MacEwan (limited to 2000 copies)

• Region B

Vital

Celebrating its 20th anniversary!

Bonus Features

• Making of Vital

• Archival Interview with Shinya Tsukamoto

• Jasper Sharp Video Essay – “An Assault On The Senses”

• Tom Mes Audio Commentary

• Music Clips

• World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival

• Special Effects Featurette

• Trailer

• Slipcase with artwork from Ian MacEwan (limited to 2000 copies)

• Region B

on Terracotta by clicking on the image below...

It might be bright and sunny outside, but on Arrow-Player, things are as dark and brooding as ever! Arrow is set to deliver an exhilarating month of film experiences in August 2024, with a line-up that promises to thrill fans of cult cinema and push the boundaries of the genre. This month’s offerings are a perfect blend of black comedy, extreme horror, and martial arts action, all available through the expertly curated streaming service that has become a go-to for fans of alternative and cult classics.

This month exclusively on Arrow comes Offspring—a brutal and chilling adaptation of Jack Ketchum’s cult horror novel, directed by Andrew van den Houten. Offspring is a visceral exploration of primal fear, following a deadly clan of feral cannibals that have terrorised the North-east Coast since 1858. This harrowing tale centers on an unsuspecting family and their innocent baby girl, who become the target of these savages.

Kubrick Edging

June proved to be a wild month: we talked about the wacky space antics of Leprechaun 4: In Space (listen), the underseen-but-very-good trans vampire film Bit (listen), the first half of Grindhouse’s double-bill, Planet Terror (listen) before closing the month with Shinya Tsukamoto’s Japanese cyberpunk masterpiece, Tetsuo: The Iron Man (listen).

Now it’s July, but Trace and I are firmly in a Christmas frame of mind thanks to our very first Stanley Kubrick film on the podcast: 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut.

In the film, married doctor Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) has his world rocked when his wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman) discloses a fantasy involving infidelity.

The revelation sends Bill spinning out into the secret sexual world of New York where seemingly everyone is having sex except him. Featuring an iconic (MPA-tampered with) orgy sequence and plenty of queer undertones, Eyes Wide Shut isn’t the thrilling odyssey audiences expected,...

In a city that’s home to an endless array of overlapping film festivals (not a complaint!), Japan Cuts continues to merit special attention every July. Produced in partnership with — and hosted by — New York’s Japan Society, Japan Cuts is not only North America’s largest and most high-profile festival dedicated to Japanese film, it’s also perhaps the most well-curated, as the titles programmed across the slate’s various sections collect into a vividly comprehensive snapshot of the country’s cinematic landscape.

Case in point: The 2024 lineup runs the gamut from lavish samurai epics like Takashi Kitano’s “Kubi” and kaiju masterpieces like Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi’s “Shin Godzilla” (presented here in its new black-and-white edition) to sensitive festival darlings like San Sebastían breakout “Great Absence” and the Berlinale-minted “The Box Man.” It highlights major auteurs like “Tetsuo the Iron Man” director Shinya Tsukamoto (whose “Shadow of Fire...

Comprising international premieres, short programs, and some of the country’s finest-ever films in new restorations, 2024’s Japan Cuts––running July 10-21 at New York’s Japan Society––is upon us. As one of North America’s sole festivals devoted to new voices in Japanese cinema, it’s likely your only opportunity to see many titles in a theatrical space. Though one can feel a bit dizzy looking through everything, we’re glad to distill it––from masters to nascent talents and, along the way, a few absolute classics given much-deserved restorations.

All the Long Nights (Shô Miyake)

Shô Miyake’s All the Long Nights is a film about small things: decency, kindness, why people help each other out, how those acts can inspire others. The first character we meet is Misa (Mone Kamishiraishi), a sensitive type who suffers from premenstrual syndrome. In the opening scene, this causes Misa to lose her cool at work,...

North America’s largest Japanese film festival presents two weeks of contemporary premieres, including new films from Kei Chika-ura, Takeshi Kitano, Gakuryu Ishii, Shunji Iwai, Sho Miyake and Shinya Tsukamoto. The program features 31 films, including 5 International Premieres, 10 North American Premieres, 4 U.S. Premieres, 2 East Coast Premieres and 7 New York Premieres, as well as the International Premiere of Shin Godzilla: Orthochromatic. Special guests include iconoclastic director Gakuryu Ishii, appearing for the East Coast Premiere of The Box Man as well as a retrospective screening of August in the Water; director Noriko Yuasa will appear at the International Premiere of Performing Kaoru’s Funeral, winner of the Japan Cuts Award at the 2024 Osaka Asian Film Festival; and actress Tomoko Tabata will appear...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Audio Assault.

June proved to be a wild month: we talked about the wacky space antics of Leprechaun 4: In Space (listen), the underseen-but-very-good trans vampire film Bit (listen), and Robert Rodriguez’s first half of the Grindhouse double-bill, Planet Terror (listen).

To kick off July, we’re racing over to Japan to discuss the 35th anniversary of Shinya Tsukamoto‘s Japanese cyberpunk masterpiece, Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989).

In the extreme cinema film, an unnamed salary man (Tomorowo Taguchi) is slowly transformed into metal after a hit and run involving a metal fetishist (Tsukamoto). After accidentally (?) killing first his cat, and then his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara) – with his new metal drill dick no less – the salary man and the fetishist engage in a destructive battle of wills that only ends when they fuse together. Together at least, the lovers set out to destroy the world.

Be sure to subscribe to...

Oh, balls.

After concluding June with discussions of the wacky space antics (and commando drag queens) of Leprechaun 4: In Space (listen) and the underseen-but-very-good trans vampire film Bit (listen), we’re heading into grindhouse cinema with Robert Rodriguez‘s first half of the Grindhouse double-bill: Planet Terror (2007)!

In the film, an experimental bio-weapon is released that turns the residents of a small town into zombie-like creatures. A rag-tag group of survivors, including go-go dancer Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan), anesthesiologist Dakota Block (Marley Shelton) and bad boy El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), team up to stop the infected and those behind its release. Little do they know that the army, led by the sinister Lieutenant Muldoon (Bruce Willis), is hiding a deep, dark secret that none of them could have ever anticipated.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts,...

Actor and filmmaker Asia Argento will be guest of honor at this year’s Neuchatel Int’l Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff), a choice the Nifff director sees as emblematic of the festival’s own self-image.

“Asia is an icon,” says Nifff chief Pierre-Yves Walder. “She’s someone we ourselves have grown up with, and whom we watched grow up. She’s established herself as artist who makes few concessions, who practices her profession with absolute freedom and who is always ready to take big risks. She has a punk side and never hesitates, and because of her career – which stretches back to the foundational horror films of her father [Dario Argento] towards something more contemporary – she also bridges versions of Nifff past and present.”

“She also helped spearhead the MeToo movement,” Walder continues, “which led to some very difficult moments. She has had some shadows on her journey, and those are important as well.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) on Monday added a David Lynch short and an episode of his iconic series Twin Peaks to its Franz Kafka retrospective and unveiled the program of its Out of the Past section, featuring classic, cult, rare and “unfairly overlooked” films, screened in their original or restored versions.

Among the highlights are restored versions of Wim Wenders’ 1984 neo-Western drama Paris, Texas and Two English Girls, François Truffaut’s 1971 period drama about a love triangle.

The Wenders film is part of a three-film program presented by Alexandre O. Philippe, the creator of documentary essays about the history of cinema, offering perspectives on the American landscape in cinema. He will also present his 2021 documentary The Taking (2021), which explores American mythology through the socio-philosophical dimensions of the American landscape.

Also part of the Out of the Past program is Let’s Get Lost, Bruce Weber’s documentary about...

July 10–21, 2024 · Japan Society · New York, NY

North America's largest Japanese film festival presents two weeks of contemporary premieres, including new films from Kei Chika-ura, Takeshi Kitano, Gakuryu Ishii, Shunji Iwai, Sho Miyake and Shinya Tsukamoto

31 films including 5 International Premieres, 10 North American Premieres, 4 U.S. Premieres, 2 East Coast Premieres and 7 New York Premieres

Includes the International Premiere of Shin Godzilla: ORTHOchromatic

Shin Godzilla: ORTHOchromatic © 2016,2023 Toho Co., Ltd

New York, NY—Japan Society announces the full lineup of the 17th annual Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film, the largest festival of its kind in North America. Set for July 10–August 21 in New York City, this year's edition will present over 30 films spanning 12 days across Feature Slate, Next Generation, Classics and Short Film sections. Among the festival's lineup are five International Premieres, 10 North American Premieres, four U.S. Premieres, two East Coast Premieres and seven New York Premieres. Additionally, Japan...

Comprising international premieres, short programs, and some of the country’s finest-ever films in new restorations, 2024’s Japan Cuts––running July 10-21 at New York’s Japan Society––has been unveiled. It’s in the festival’s nature that numerous works and directors are lesser-known on American shores, though a cursory search has one regularly stopping: new films by Takeshi Kitano (Kubi), Shunji Iwai (Kyrie), Shinya Tsukamoto (Shadow of Fire), and Gakuryu Ishii (The Box Man) populate the selection. Meanwhile, Hideaki Anno’s modern classic Shin Godzilla debuts in a new, black-and-white cut Shin Godzilla: ORTHOchromatic.

Its classics section is three-for-three: Ishii’s August in the Water, Shinji Somai’s Moving, and Toshiharu Ikeda Mermaid Legend, which is more or less one of the greatest films ever made. One can anticipate at least a couple of Japan Cuts’ current unknowns are tomorrow’s figureheads.

See the full lineup below:...

In the wake of Hayao Miyazaki’s latest Oscar win for “The Boy and the Heron” and the VOD dominance of “Godzilla Minus One,” Japanese cinema continues to be as vital as ever to American audiences. That should make the upcoming edition of Japan Cuts, the annual film festival celebrating Japanese cinema co-produced by Japan Society, one of the most exciting events on New York cinephiles’ summer calendars.

The lineup, which IndieWire can exclusively reveal, contains a mix of American and New York premieres alongside a curated selection of newly restored classics. Notable titles include “Shin Godzilla: ORTHOchromatic,” a new black-and-white version of Hideaki Anno’s 2016 kaiju blockbuster; and “Shadow of Fire,” the war drama from “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” director Shinya Tsukamoto that premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival.

“We couldn’t be more amazed by this year’s festival,” Peter Tatara, director of film at Japan Society, who...

From The Brood to Crash and new film The Shrouds, the Canadian body horror pioneer has outraged the censors and inspired countless directors

In 2021, French film-maker Julia Ducournau won the Cannes Palme d’Or with her blistering, autoerotic magnum opus Titane. It was a richly deserved victory – a celebration of a bold new voice in cinema. Yet for longstanding fans of body horror – a genre pioneered decades earlier by the Canadian writer-director David Cronenberg – it also felt like karmic payback for the festival’s botched response to Crash, Cronenberg’s controversial 1996 masterpiece, to which Titane is heavily indebted.

During a career spanning six decades and more than 20 feature films, Cronenberg, 81, has inspired everyone from Japanese auteur Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) to rising British star Rose Glass. But his brilliant Jg Ballard adaptation was denied its own Palme d’Or win thanks largely to the disdain of Cannes jury president Francis Ford Coppola.

By the time you’ve inched toward the halfway point of the first episode of Shōgun, the epic new limited series that revisits James Clavell’s 1975 doorstopper of a historical novel about early 1600s Japan, you’ve already seen an eyeful: massive schooners, flashing swords, military processions, political power plays, a father and his infant son sentenced to death, a half-dozen English prisoners awaiting their fate in a pit. And then, out of nowhere, a character rides in on horseback. He’s shot from behind, but there’s something about the way he holds himself,...

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has announced its first wave of program details for its upcoming 58th edition, which is set to take place from June 28 through July 6, 2024. The Czech festival, widely considered to be the most prestigious film festival in Eastern Europe, is set to honor one of the nation’s most famous writers with a new retrospective titled “Franz Kafka and the Cinema.”

The series is set to feature screenings of a wide range of films inspired by the Czech novelist, who famously wove themes of alienation and existential angst into cryptic novels that often flirted with surrealism. Some films, like Orson Welles’ “The Trial” are direct adaptations of Kafka’s writings; but the series also includes movies about Kafka’s life, and films like Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours” that were influenced by Kafka’s ideas.

“For decades, Kafka’s oeuvre has functioned as a continuing provocation to filmmakers,...

Veteran Japanese character actor Tadanobu Asano is having a very overdue breakthrough moment. The chameleonic film star has been a mainstay of Japanese cinema for nearly three decades, while also regularly appearing in prominent supporting parts in big Hollywood productions. But his irresistible performance in FX’s period series Shōgun is giving him an all-new level of global recognition.

Asano co-stars in Shōgun as Kashigi Yabushige, the scheming lord of Izu, a rugged region of feudal Japan where much of the series takes place. Playing the character with lived-in swagger and a fatalistic sense of humor, Asano has become one of the show’s clear fan favorites, with Reddit and Twitter threads popping up to revel in his character’s antics. Asano announced himself early in Shōgun‘s run: As many have marveled, Yabushige makes his entrance to the show by boiling a man alive but then wins the audience...

The 44th edition of genre film festival Fantasporto, which runs in Portugal’s second city Porto from March 1-10, has bestowed its best film award on Japanese sci-fi fantasy pic “From the End of the World,” directed by Kaz I Kiriya.

The movie follows 10-year-old Hana, whose dreams transport her across various eras in Japanese history, and have the ability to save humanity.

The jury’s special award went to “The Complex Forms,” Italian director Fabio D’Orta’s debut feature. The sci-fi horror centers on a man who has sold his body so it can be possessed by a creature of unknown nature.

The prize for best direction was nabbed by Spanish filmmaker Gonzalo López-Gallego for horror movie “The Shadow of the Shark” (La Sombra del Tiburon). In the film, a young woman, Alma, is undergoing therapy as she is unable to sleep. With the help of surveillance cameras, she...

With films like “Destruction Babies” and “Miyamoto”, Tetsuya Mariko has really left an impact in the Japanese movie industry during the latest years, as one of the few remaining directors of ‘tense cinema', as established by directors such as Takashi Miike, Sion Sono, Toshiaki Toyoda and Shinya Tsukamoto. Now, with “Before Anyone Else”, he attempts to take his talents outside Japan, to the US specifically, hopefully in a new endeavor and not because he cannot find space in his home country anymore.

Before Anyone Else is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

In black-and-white and low definition, the movie begins with a young woman driving a car, getting out of it, and then the camera turning to the backseat, showing a baby sitting there. The next cut shows a completely different scene, in color this time, where a group of four Americans and Asian Americans break into a pawn shop.

The 1950s are considered the Golden Age of Japanese cinema. The aftermath of World War II and particularly the atomic bomb, and the subsequent American occupation left the country scarred, but filled with inspiration and eagerness to start over. One of the most iconic films of this era is Akira Kurosawa's “Seven Samurai”, considered among the most influential movies of all time, and the basis for a plethora of productions, with John Sturges' “The Magnificent Seven” being a direct adaptation. This influence became widely known, even at the time, as the film was nominated for two Oscars, while Kurosawa won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

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In 16th century Japan, during the feudal wars, an entire village is on the border of starvation due to the constant raids by a gang of armed robbers. When a villager learns,...

Japanese auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who won best director at Venice in 2020 with Wife Of A Spy, is working on a new suspense thriller titled Cloud, which will be introduced to buyers at the EFM by Japanese studio Nikkatsu Corporation.

The feature is in post-production with a Japanese release set for September 2024. A first look at the film can be seen above.

Written by Kurosawa, the story centres on Ryosuke Yoshii, an enigmatic young man who tries to make money by reselling shrewdly obtained goods on the internet under the pseudonym ‘Ratel’.

The film stars Masaki Suda, who won best actor...

As one of the few (I don't want to say one of the last) Japanese filmmakers who can still produce movies with tension, pointed comments and a no-punches-pulled cinematic approach, every new movie Shinya Tsukamoto comes up with is a must-watch. In “Shadow of Fire”, he continues his anti-war message that also appeared in “Fires on the Plain” and “Killing”, this time focusing on the chaos that ensued in Japan just after the ending of World War 2.

Shadow of Fire is screening at Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme

In an area adjacent to a black market, a young woman whose family was lost during the war is selling her body to make a living in a Japanese pub diner that barely survived the bombings. One day, a young soldier appears as a customer, and the woman asks him to stay the night, kickstarting a series of his visits, every night,...

Japanese studio Nikkatsu has boarded international sales on revenge drama Tatsumi by rising filmmaker Shoji Hiroshi ahead of the EFM.

It marks the second feature of Hiroshi, whose crime drama Ken And Kazu played a string of festivals in 2016, following its premiere at Tokyo International Film Festival where it won the top prize in the Cinema Splash section for independent Japanese films.

His follow-up is also a crime drama that follows Tatsumi, a fisherman who doubles as a “cleaner” for gangland hits. But when his ex is murdered in front of her young sister, the two form an alliance to seek vengeance.

Shinya Tsukamoto's gritty crime film “Bullet Ballet” is a story of loneliness and despair wrapped up in chaos and violence within the confines of Tokyo. The movie's two leads, Goda and Chisato, played by Tsukamoto and Kirina Mano respectively, suffer depression following their own traumatic experiences and continuously contemplate suicide. The former lost his girlfriend to a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and the latter struggles from a troubled upbringing. Their paths correlate as they pursue extreme measures. Goda is driven to kill with a firearm, while Chisato seeks escapism and thrills in a street gang life. Eventually, the two form an unlikely bond. However, their gradual desire to live and grow from their pasts becomes tested by the threat of a vengeful crime boss. Yet, before an intense shootout ensues in the movie's climax, our two leads quietly wander the streets of Tokyo, contemplating the inevitable confrontation while comforting one...

Shinya Tsukamoto’s Shadow of Fire begins as a troubling but measured film, but about a half-hour in something happens that shatters its quietude. Suddenly, a man who to this point has been impotent and deferential throws a small boy out a window and begins beating a woman. From the director best-known for Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and whose other films are often similarly stylish and sexually violent, that might not sound like much, but it is precisely the restraint of Shadow of Fire that makes the violence one of the more harrowing moments in Tsukamoto’s growing oeuvre.

Tsukamoto used to make movies at a swift pace: from his 1989 debut Tetsuo to 2011’s Kotoko, a dozen films. Since then, Shadow of Fire is just his third, all three of which are focused in some way on war, and each has taken longer to arrive than the one before. Whether...

Ning Hao’s The Movie Emperor will screen as the opening film of Macau’s Asia-Europe Young Cinema Film Festival, which is holding its inaugural edition from January 5-11. Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 12th Fail, recently a hit in India, will screen as the closing film.

The event has two major sections – a programme of masterclasses and screenings aimed at young directors, film students and local audiences, and a Works-in-Progress (WiP) Lab, which will be attended by international sales agents, distributors and festival programmers.

The masterclasses will be held by leading international filmmakers including several from the Chinese-speaking world – Ning Hao, Li Dongmei, Johnnie To, Yon Fan and Lee Hong-chi – along with Japanese filmmakers Ryosuke Hamaguchi and Shinya Tsukamoto, Russia’s Aleksey German Jr, Italy’s Gabriel Menetti, India’s Anurag Kashyap, Lav Diaz from the Philippines and Iranian filmmaker Amir Naderi.

China Film Directors Association is actively involved in...

The Alamo Drafthouse is going back in time to ring in the New Year.

The cinema chain announced that starting January 5, a year-long Time Capsules program will feature curated films ranging from 1974 to 1999. Per the theater, Alamo Time Capsules is “a yearlong trek back through time that revisits both beloved blockbusters and forgotten favorites spanning six landmark cinema years — 1999, 1994, 1989, 1984, 1979, and 1974. Title collections will span six to eight weeks and, rather than act as a ‘top ten list’ of films, instead will tell their part of the story of that year in cinema, culture, and history.”

The retrospective — the largest and most comprehensive in the company’s history — runs throughout 2024 and will include nearly 150 different selections. Upcoming Time Capsule collections will include special merchandise, custom Alamo Drafthouse menus, and special events. The year 1999 kicks off the program with films like “Being John Malkovich,” “The Iron Giant,” “Cruel Intentions,” “Pretty Woman,” “Jawbreaker,...

The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme, the U.K.’s largest festival of Japanese cinema, will take to the road in February and March. Its 2024 selection is the event’s largest ever with much of it attuned to the theme of memories, times and reflections.

“The JFTFP24 delves into Japanese cinema to explore how memories are employed in the cinematic voices of Japanese filmmakers, from films where memories are a focal point to works where they play a subliminal role in driving or affecting people’s minds and behavior,” said organizers.

The festival will run Feb. 2 – Mar. 31 and take in 30 U.K. cities including Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford, Orkney, Exeter and York.

Program highlights include: the U.K. premiere of “Shadow of Fire,” directed by festival favorite Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man); a new entry in Nikkatsu’s Roman Porno genre, “Hand”; visually stunning anime “Lonely Castle in the Mirror,...

Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand’s satire “Testament” will open the 44th edition of Fantasporto, which runs March 1-10 in Portugal’s second city, Porto. Chinese fantasy epic “Creation of Gods I: Kingdom of Storms,” directed by Wuershan, closes the eclectic event.

The festival, which was named by MovieMaker magazine this year as one of the “25 coolest festivals in the world,” is headed by film critics Beatriz Pacheco Pereira and Mário Dorminsky. Around 600 feature films were submitted this year and 1,200 shorts.

Pacheco Pereira says they select films that have a “special touch but still a universal language.” Dorminsky adds: “We try to discover new directors.” These directors – having established a relationship with the festival – often return with their subsequent films, he says.

“Testament” epitomizes one trend that Pacheco Pereira identifies, which is “old people asking: ‘Where is the world going?'” She adds: “‘Testament’ is a wonderful film in which an...

Game designer Hideo Kojima, creator of the hugely popular “Death Stranding,” had two pieces of news coming out of the Game Awards 2023.

On Thursday evening at the Game Awards show in L.A., Kojima appeared on stage with filmmaker Jordan Peele to announce his next game project: “Od,” which Kojima describes as an “immersive and totally new style of game” that will explore “what it means to Od on fear.” It’s being produced in partnership with Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios.

In addition, Kojima announced that his documentary film “Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds” — which follows his journey to form an independent games studio and his creative process behind “Death Stranding” — will be distributed worldwide in the spring of 2024 exclusively on Disney+.

Peele, the acclaimed director of “Get Out,” “Us” and “Nope,” will be “one of several talented storytellers” involved in the “Od” project, according to Kojima Productions. “We are...

Ryuhei Matsuda was born on the 9th of May, 1983, in Tokyo, to actress and producer Miyuki Matsuda and actor Yûsaku Matsuda, and only six years later he loses his father to cancer at the premature age of 40. At only 15, Ryuhei is approached by Nagisa Oshima with the life changing offer of a prominent role in his film Gohatto. Since then, Matsuda's magnetic charisma and remarkable versatility have allowed him to portray a wide range of characters, from brooding antiheroes to quirky and endearing figures, captivating audiences both in Japan and internationally.

With a unique ability to immerse himself in diverse roles, he has left an indelible mark on Japanese cinema and continues to be a beloved and influential figure in the world of acting. However, Matsuda's congenital air of disdain for the whole world, his glacial aloofness mixed with his innate handsomeness make him the prototype of effortless coolness,...

Stars: Tomorô Taguchi, Shinya Tsukamoto, Nobu Kanaoka, Sujin Kim, Hideaki Tezuka, Tomoo Asada, Iwata, Keinosuke Tomioka | Written and Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto

After kickstarting his career with 1989’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man, writer/director Shinya Tsukamoto returned to the Japanese body horror series 3 years later with Tetsuo II: Body Hammer – an unconnected sequel which takes its own journey regarding a man’s transformation into machine. The opening moments show the camera acting as an unseen character’s perspective, stalking an unnamed salaryman who gets killed after the unseen character holds out his index finger like a gun and fires it.

The story then cuts to Taniguchi Tomoo (Tomorô Taguchi), a married salaryman with a young son named Minori. Adopted as a child, Tomoo questions his unknown past and the reasons for his recurring nightmares. His world is turned upside down when two men kidnap Minori and inject the father with an unknown substance.

Stars: Tomorô Taguchi, Kei Fujiwara, Nobu Kanaoka, Shinya Tsukamoto, Renji Ishibashi, Naomasa Musaka | Written and Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto

After spending his youth creating short films and entering experimental theatre, Shinya Tsukamoto made an indelible mark on Japanese horror cinema with his feature debut, Tetsuo: The Iron Man. The writer/director/producer/editor also appears on-screen as a metal fetishist, setting the tone for this bizarre work as his character inserts scrap metal into a self-inflicted wound in his thigh. The sight of maggots within the wound causes him to run in fear, resulting in him becoming the victim of a hit-and-run accident.

The story then focuses on a salaryman (Tomorô Taguchi), who discovers a metallic thorn sticking out of his cheek while shaving. While he later waits in a subway station, a woman infected with metallic tentacles begins chasing him. This begins a campaign of terror upon the salaryman,...

The Tokyo International Film Festival undertook a series of bold changes in 2020 to enhance its international reach, including a location change and major shakeups across staffing and programming. For the global film community, however, much of the overhaul went unfelt due to the travel restrictions of the pandemic. The Tokyo festival’s chairman, Hiroyasu Ando, emphasized at a press conference in the Japanese capital Wednesday that the event “aims to take a bigger leap” this year with its upcoming 36th edition, making good on its ambitions for a transformation.

“We’re really focussing on international interaction,” Ando said, noting that the festival would welcome some 600 overseas guests this year, including filmmakers, jury members and industry professionals, a major uptick from the 104 international industry VIPs who attended in 2022.

The Tokyo International Film Festival will open Oct. 23 with a gala screening of acclaimed German auteur Wim Wenders’ Tokyo-set drama Perfect Days, which...

by Cláudio Alves

Examining troubled history through art can be a necessary confrontation, even a search for catharsis. You can't move into a brighter future without acknowledging the shadows lurking in the past. It's no wonder, then, that countless filmmakers use their skills to make these excavations on the dig site of the screen. For all that Shinya Tsukamoto's Shadow of Fire and Felipe Gálvez Haberle's The Settlers tackle their respective countries' histories, they're not traditional period pieces content to passively restage yesteryears. They bear the weight of an artist's singular vision…...

J-Horror is among the most renowned internationally genres of Asian cinema, with the popularity of titles like “Ringu”, “Ju-on”, “Pulse” and so many others still echoing quite intensely. As such, it is quite interesting, even today, to shed a more thorough look to the roots, the motifs, and the reasons of success of these movies, also because some of the most central directors are still at large.

Check also this article Is J-Horror Coming Back? Six Movies that Suggest So

As such, I have to begin the review by stating that shooting this documentary seems like a colossal endeavor, both for arranging interviews with the likes of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takashi Shimizu, Teruyoshi Ishii, Joji Iida, Masayuki Ochiai, Shinya Tsukamoto, and Mari Asato, and for tracking down Rie Ino'o, who played Sadako in the first two films, and Takako Fuji, who played Kayako in a number of entries of “Ju-on”. Add...