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It seems the inherent conservatism of the majority of Asian countries prevailed this year, and there were very few entries that could be described as erotic, even if mildly. We still managed to find a few however, even if most of them come from Japan, the only country who seems at least partially unfased by the aforementioned consumerism, even if the Roman Porno relaunch seems to be somewhat on hiatus at least from Nikkatsu’s side.

In this list, we tried to focus on titles where the erotic is one of the key elements, while trying to stay away from exploitation or soft-porn (S. Korean and Filipino cinema is filled with these btw) for the most part, instead focusing on “regular” movies that simply include this aspect, in order to titillate or even make their comments through it. Without further ado here is the list, in random order. Some films...

Following the excellent “Wilderness” and “(Ab)normal Desire”, Yoshiyuki Kishi decided to tone down his approach a bit, coming up with a ‘tamer’ film, based on the homonymous Shuhei Nire novel.

Sunset Sunrise is screening at Tokyo International Film Festival

The story takes place in 2020 in Minamisanriku in Miyagi Prefecture, with Japan being forced into lockdown following the Covid pandemic. Shinsaku, an avid fisherman working for a large Tokyo company, takes advantage of remote work and is instantly drawn to a dream property—a 4Ldk with a rent of just 60,000 yen. Most importantly, it’s near the sea, where he can enjoy his favorite hobby of fishing. He starts a casual “trial relocation” in a town in the Sanriku region, spending his days fishing between work sessions. However, as an outsider from Tokyo, the townspeople are initially uneasy around Shinsaku.

The fact that the house he rents belongs to the late husband of Momoka,...

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud, recently selected as Japan’s entry to the Oscars, has been sold to key territories in Asia and Europe by Nikkatsu Corporation.

The suspense thriller has been acquired for the UK and Ireland (Blue Finch Film Releasing), German-speaking Europe (Plaion Pictures Gmbh), South Korea (Media Castle) and Hong Kong/Macau (Golden Scene). They add to sales made to France, Spain, Italy and Taiwan.

The film premiered at Venice in August and went on to play Toronto. It is screening at Busan International Film Festival (Biff), where Japanese auteur Kurosawa collected the Asian Filmmaker of the Year Award on Wednesday.

The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) today revealed the lineup for its 37th edition, which includes world premieres of features from China, Japan and Hong Kong among its competition strands.

The festival, which is set to run from October 28 to November 6, will include 120 films and three series across the 10 main sections. The selection was made from 2,023 entries, up from 1,942 last year.

Scroll down for full competition lists

The majority of the 15-strong Competition strand hails from Asia with three films from Japan and three from China as well as titles from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Kazakhstan.

The films from Japan...

The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) today revealed the lineup for its 37th edition, which includes world premieres of features from China, Japan and Hong Kong among its competition strands.

The festival, which is set to run from October 28 to November 6, will include 120 films and three series across the 10 main sections. The selection was made from 2,023 entries, up from 1,942 last year.

Scroll down for full competition lists

The majority of the 15-strong Competition strand hails from Asia with three films from Japan and three from China as well as titles from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Kazakhstan.

The films from Japan...

Considering that the Japanese industry produces around 600 movies every year, it is by no surprise that there are enough titles of quality to go around, as the plethora of Japanese-specific festivals around the world highlights. Toronto Japanese Film Festival highlights the fact with a very interesting collection of both known titles and ‘hidden gems”, which showcase the variety of the country's cinema. From this year's selection, Eiji Uchida's latest endeavor, “Matched”, Yoshiyuki Kishi's “(Ab)normal Desire” and “Stay Mum” were the ones that stand out.

Check our whole coverage in the list and click on the titles to read the full reviews.

1. All the Long Nights (2024) by Sho Miyake 2. Matched (2024) by Eiji Uchida

Furthermore, what is going to happen is clear from a mile away, with the twist being as cliched as it could be. However, and the however is quite big here, the way the story ends...

Winner of Awards for Best Director and the Audience one in Tokyo this year, “(Ab)normal Desire” is a film that stays true to its title, as Yoshiyuki Kishi tries to present fetishes and the people who carry them as a normal part of society, even if society does not.

(Ab)normal Desire is screening at Toronto Japanese Film Festival

Based on the novel Seiyoku by Ryo Asai, the script follows the lives of a number of characters. Hiroki Terai is a prosecutor at the Yokohama Prosecutor's Office. He is married to Yumi and has a son who goes to elementary school, but has troubles adapting to school life. When he watches a video of a YouTuber influencer girl his age, who states how great she feels now that she is not attending school, he asks his father to do the same, but he turns him down without a second world,...

Yoshiyuki Kishi has been working in the Japanese film and TV industry for many years, as a director of documentaries, producer as well as screenwriter. His first feature “A Double Life” was screened at many international film festivals and garnered him a lot of attention among critics and cinephiles alike. His feature “Wilderness” received awards at Japan Academy Film Prize, Asian Film Awards and Blue Ribbon Awards. His new feature “(Ab)normal Desire” also received awards at Toronto International Film Festival.

On the occasion of “(Ab)normal Desire” being screened at Nippon Connection 2024, Yoshiyuki Kishi talks about the themes of his feature, the visual approach and the amount of tolerance in Japanese society.

“(Ab)normal Desire” is the adaptation of a novel by Ryo Asai. What are differences between your film and the novel and what were the challenges in adapting this story for the screen?

The novel is set...

The Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre's 13th annual Toronto Japanese Film Festival will be held from June 6th to 20th at the Jccc's Kobayashi Hall. The festival has now grown into one of the largest film events of its kind in the world and is recognized by the Japanese film industry as a vital conduit for bringing Japanese film to the world.

TorontoJFF is programmed to reflect the rich diversity of the world 4th largest film industry and the 2024 edition will feature 24 films including the International Premieres of Kosai Sekine's mystery drama Stay Mum「かくしごと 」starring Anne Watanabe and Eiji Okuda and Toshiyuki Teruya's heartwarming Okinawa-based comedy Kanasando「かなさんどー 」. The festival is also very proud to present the World Premiere of Alice Il Shin's Landscapes Of Home 「故郷の風景」 from producer Eiko Kawabe Brown. The film is an investigation of Japanese Canadian struggle from a new perspective redefining...

The Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre’s 13th annual Toronto Japanese Film Festival will be held from June 6th to 20th at the Jccc’s Kobayashi Hall. The festival has now grown into one of the largest film events of its kind in the world and is recognized by the Japanese film industry as a vital conduit for bringing Japanese film to the world.

Tjff is programmed to reflect the rich diversity of the world 4th largest film industry and the 2024 edition will feature 24 films including the International Premiere of Kosai Sekine’s mystery drama Stay Mum「かくしごと 」starring Anne Watanabe and Eiji Okuda.

North American Premieres include Hayato Kawai’s comic retelling of the 47 Ronin story Don’T Lose Your Head!「身代わり忠臣蔵 」, Sho Miyake’s gentle tale of friendship amid mental-health struggles, All The Long Nights「夜明けのすべて 」, Yoshiyuki Kishi’s winner of the Audience Award and Best Director at the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival,...

The Far East Film Festival (Feff) in Italy’s Udine has unveiled the full line-up for its 26th edition, which will honour Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou with an honorary award and world premiere restored versions of his Raise The Red Lantern and To Live.

Running April 24 to May 2, the festival will open with a double bill: Chinese box office hit Yolo and South Korean action-comedy Citizen Of A Kind.

Yolo dominated this year’s Lunar New Year releases, grossing $484m in China, and is directed by Jia Ling, who stars as an unemployed woman in her 30s whose life is...

Following decades in television and film, including stints as a producer, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker, Yoshiyuki Kishi made his feature directorial debut in 2016, aged 52, with Double Life, attracting some international festival attention.

He returned the following year with the ambitious Wilderness, based on the only novel by Shuji Terayama. Released in two parts a few weeks apart in Japan, with a combined running time of more than five hours, Wilderness portrayed two very different social outcasts on their journey to becoming professional boxers, against the backdrop of a socially disintegrating Japan. It landed Masaki Suda best actor at the Japan Academy Awards, and Korea’s Yang Ik-june best supporting actor at the Asian Film Awards.

Kishi’s latest, (Ab)normal Desire, is almost certainly his most challenging and complex work to date. Selected in competition at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival and starring Yui Aragaki, Goro Inagaki,...

Yoshiyuki Kishi’s movies are always intense, and intensely emotional. The director peels back layers of desperate working-class citizens who aspire to become more than they could ever realistically achieve. Their confines might be systemic, like the boys trying to fight their way out of an environment of rampant youth unemployment and a broken social welfare system in Kishi’s ‘Wilderness’ series. but they could also be deeply psychological. In Kishi’s most recent full-length ‘Prior Convictions’ it is both: The film explores the shortcomings of Japanese law enforcement while also telling the story of how a rough childhood can have serious long lasting implications.

Prior Convictions is screening at Camera Japan

Three years into her profession, Kayo has spent a good portion of her young-adult life working as a probation officer. Although she has found the work rewarding and made many friends throughout her career, all sense of comfort...

By Shikhar Verma

In the contemporary world where people within a room living together have secrets, it’s truly difficult to understand someone completely. All of us reflect two or more character traits because we are never really satisfied with the skin we live in. We hide our pain within these personalities and secrets, as we go on living without understanding our lives and reason for existence. In his debut feature film, Yoshiyuki Kishi explores the idea of existence through his protagonist Tama (Mugi Kadowaki), who stalks (or in her own words ‘tails’) a person without realising the consequences it could possibly lead to.

“Double Life” screened at the New York Asian Film Festival

Based on Mariko Koike’s novel ‘True Stories”, which was in turn based on Sophia Calle’s real life works of shadowing people without any reason, the film follows Tama, a young graduate student as she...

If there is a film (or films) meant to represent Japan’s nowadays society/economy in a nutshell, that could be this 6 hour epic journey called “Wilderness: Part 1” & “Wilderness: Part 2”. And although we are talking about two films here, Wilderness is really one film split in two, since both parts directly depend on each other. Directed by Yoshiyuki Kishi and starring outstanding actors such as Masaki Suda, Ik-june Yang, Yusuke Santamaria, Akari Kinoshita and Tae Kimura among others.

Wilderness: Part 1 & 2 is screening at Nippon Connection

The context is set on the very near future in Japan, the year 2021. On the one hand, we have Shinji, one of the main protagonists of the story. Shinji is a young boy who has been involved in street gangs in the past and who has just been released from prison. Filled with hatred and with a clear goal due to the consequences that his violent past has left him,...

Japan’s Close-Knit wins audience award.

Thai high school thriller Bad Genius starring the Screen International Rising Star Asia Award winner Chutimon ‘Aokbab’ Chuengcharoensukying was named best feature as the 16th New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff) came to a close.

Director Nattawut “Baz” Poonpiriya attended the awards ceremony on July 15. His film received its international premiere and opened the 17-day festival on June 30, when Chuengcharoensukying collected her award on stage at the Walter Reade Theater. Nyaff concluded on July 16 with the Us premiere of The Villainess.

Bad Genius was among seven features nominated in the new main competition, which was restricted to films by first- and second-time directors. The inaugural three-person jury comprised actress Jennifer Kim, VOD acquisitions executive George Schmaltz, and festival super fan Kristina Winters.

The competition’s special mention award went to Yoshiyuki Kishi’s A Double Life from Japan, and an honourable mention for most promising director went to Le Binh Giang for Vietnam...

Japan’s Close-Knit wins audience award.

Thai high school thriller Bad Genius starring the Screen International Rising Star Asia Award winner Chutimon ‘Aokbab’ Chuengcharoensukying was named best feature as the 16th New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff) came to a close.

Director Nattawut “Baz” Poonpiriya attended the awards ceremony on July 15. His film received its international premiere and opened the 17-day festival on June 30, when Chuengcharoensukying collected her award on stage at the Walter Reade Theater.

Director Nattawut “Baz” Poonpiriya attended the awards ceremony on July 15 and Nyaff concluded on July 16 with the Us premiere of The Villainess.

Bad Genius was among seven features nominated in the new main competition, which was restricted to films by first- and second-time directors. The inaugural three-person jury comprised actress Jennifer Kim, VOD acquisitions executive George Schmaltz, and festival super fan Kristina Winters.

The competition’s special mention award went to Yoshiyuki Kishi’s A Double Life from Japan, and an honourable...