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Japanese director Nobuhiro Yamashita (“Linda Linda Linda”) was represented by no less than three features at Montreal’s Fantasia Fest this year, including anime “Ghost Cat Anzu” and high school seriocomedy “Swimming in a Sand Pool.” The shortest, most outwardly simple yet also possibly best of the lot might well be “Confession,” a manga adaptation in which two mountaineering refugees from a blizzard spend a long, discomfiting night in a cabin. The fact that one of them has just admitted to murder means that that particular type of crime could well recur before dawn arrives.

More or less a single-setting two-hander, this thriller proves a small master class in eking maximum value from a premise one might assume too limited to sustain more than a short’s length. It’s a sharply honed, pleasurably nasty cat-and-mouse thriller that could attract remake interest overseas.

A brief prologue informs us that Sayuri...

Japanese cinema has been on a somewhat successful stalemate for years now, with the titles produced (at least the ones we manage to sea in the West out of the 600 the country produces every year) retaining the same, relatively high quality, even though no particular steps forward have been made for years now Regarding the state of the industry in 2023, you can read the very informative article by Mark Schilling, but the thing I have to mention is that, despite the issues, local movies definitely have four things working quite well for them, particularly this year. First of all, the big names deliver almost always, with Miyazaki, Hamaguchi and Koreeda proving the fact this year also. Second of all, the quality of anime remains high as always and thirdly, some efforts at different cinematic approaches continue to take place, even though they can almost exclusively be found in low budget and short films.

In 2011, director Rupert Wyatt relaunched the popular but long-dormant Planet of the Apes franchise. It was a grand venture, especially given the classic nature of the 1968 original screenplay with leading man Charlton Heston. Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes would be the first of a trilogy. Together, the three films would give a complete and riveting account of the uprising of the primate class to become the dominant species on the planet. The sequels, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War of the Planet of the Apes fell under the direction of Matt Reeves.

It has been five years since the apes waged war against humanity, leaving viewers parched with anticipation. What becomes of a world ruled by primates? Alas, there is hope for a conclusion. In the late spring of 2024, fans will finally see a conclusion to the dramatic epic. Here is what to...

A number of people in Amp, including this author, have a soft spot for Kiyohiko Shibukawa, an actor who has proven a true chameleon in the way he jumps from one part to another, with equal success. Shibukawa, born July 2, 1974, actually started his career as a fashion model under the name Kee. He started acting in TV with “Twinkle”, in 1998, and he got his first role in cinema in Toshiaki Toyoda's “Pornostar”, with him actually accompanying the director in most of his later works, something that actually happened with the rest of the filmmakers he was casted by over the years. These include, among others, Takashi Miike, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, and Eiji Uchida. Currently, his credits number 160, with the majority of them being non-protagonist roles, which, still, though do not prevent him from shining quite brightly, particularly to the more “trained” eye.

Without further ado, here are 10 of his most iconic performances,...

Winner of the Special Jury Award at 2015 Anchorage International Film Festival and Special Jury Remi Award at 2016 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, “Magic Utopia” is a movie that is permeated by a sense of mystery and abstraction, with Shoji Toyama and Shuichi Tan actually focusing more on the overall atmosphere.

Magic Utopia is streaming on TodoiF

Lisa or Nao or Erika lost her mother when she was a child and is currently searching for a solace by dating different men she barely knows. One night she meets Sato, who is trapped by the memories of his friend's death, and the two end up having sex, even though another lover of hers, appears before them just as they exit the cafe they met. An elderly man, whose daughter died 17 years ago, is a successful author but lives in solitude. One day, he receives a phone call from a girl whose voice sounds exactly like his daughter.

Jamila Woods is back with “Boomerang,” the second single from her upcoming album Water Made Us. Check out the track below.

“I think you really wanna dance with me,” Woods sings in her new song. With snappy percussion and thumping bass, she’s right: “Boomerang” will make even the most stoic of listeners nod their heads along to its rosy melody.

“I co-wrote this song with Nao, Grades, and George Moore on a sweet London day last year,” the singer said of the track. “It was amazing to work with Nao and meet her longtime collaborators and feel the synergy that they have together. It’s a song about that kind of relationship that keeps popping back up throughout your life, that magnetic attachment you have to someone and the excitement and anxiety that comes with wondering ‘will we or won’t we?'”

In keeping with its title, “Boomerang...

Takumi Saitoh is a truly unique talent, who, after proving his prowess as an actor (he now has 165 credits to his name) continued in the same level as a director, with his segments in “Folklore” and “Food Lore”, and the features “Blank 13” and “Comply+-ance” being truly top notch. As such, his latest work, “Home Sweet Home”, based on the homonymous 2019 novel by Rinko Kamizu was one of the most anticipated films of the year. Let us see how he fared.

Home Sweet Home is screening at New York Asian Film Festival

Living in the harsh winter of Nagano, Kenji Kiyosawa, a sports instructor, is tired of being cold along with his wife, Hitomi, and newborn. As such, when he stumbles upon a company that manufactures pre-built houses that implement a technology that can warm the whole establishment with a single air-conditioner, his enthusiasm is unprecedented, as much as for his wife.

It was either Nietzsche or Tex Avery — but one of our great philosophers — who asserted that there are two types of people in this world: those who walk through life blithely unbothered by manholes, and those who are destined to fall into them. Now, for curious members of the former class, comes an intimate examination of what it’s like to be one of the latter: “#Manhole,” Japanese director Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s slick, increasingly deranged survival thriller about a man who will finally learn to know his true nature from a hole in the ground.

Popular, successful and possessed of highly covetable good looks, Shunsuke Kawamura has the world at his feet. It’s the eve of his wedding to the pregnant daughter of his company’s CEO, and his co-workers have organized a surprise party to toast his good fortune. Walking home drunk from the festivities, Shunsuke suddenly stumbles.