Japan Times
Tomatometer-approved publication
Rating
Title/Year
Author
1
4/5
Missing (2021)
This is an accomplished piece of work, and brilliantly entertaining.
Posted Jan 20, 2022
2
4/5
Last of the Wolves (2021)
This is a wolf - and a film - with a bite.
Posted Jan 18, 2022
3
4/5
Haruhara-san's Recorder (2021)
Elegantly captures the ways in which people tiptoe around grief.
Posted Jan 7, 2022
4
2/5
The Door Into Summer (2021)
The corny melodramatics of the opening stretch are missed during the frictionless scenes that follow, and Miki's direction only underlines the tweeness of the narrative.
Posted Jan 6, 2022
5
2/5
A Family (2021)
The film's mawkish laments for the passing of old-school gangsterdom, killed off by stringent anti-gang laws, are frankly ludicrous.
Posted Jan 4, 2022
6
4.5/5
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021)
Shows us how fiction can tell deeper truths than fact and how one kind deed can power us through life, in all its beauty, terror and mystery.
Posted Dec 13, 2021
7
Minamata Mandala (2020)
8
3.5/5
Come and Go (2020)
9
4/5
We Couldn't Become Adults (2021)
Soaked in nostalgia for 1990s Tokyo.
Posted Nov 11, 2021
10
4/5
11
3.5/5
12
3.5/5
Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko (2021)
What'll stick with me is the feeling of everyday life in a charming coastal town - punctuated by some timeworn tropes in an Osaka drawl.
Posted Sep 23, 2021
13
3.5/5
Hell's Garden (2021)
The result is often hilarious, though the gender politics can be dubious.
Posted Sep 23, 2021
14
4/5
A Balance (2020)
In its honesty about the real-life pitfalls of finding and telling the truth, A Balance is a rare and brave achievement.
Posted Sep 17, 2021
15
3.5/5
16
3/5
Drive My Car (2021)
Although Yusuke and Misaki eventually find some closure, the polyglot "Uncle Vanya" proves to be more engrossing.
Posted Aug 19, 2021
17
3/5
It's A Summer Film! (2021)
18
4/5
The Asian Angel (2021)
19
3/5
A Dobugawa Dream (2018)
20
3.5/5
The Blue Danube (2020)
Although it drifts in places, the film snaps into focus during its closing stretch, which suggests Ikeda may be an heir to the anti-war sentiments of the late Nobuhiko Obayashi.
Posted Jun 29, 2021
21
3/5
Hokusai (2020)
22
3.5/5
Zokki (2020)
Zokki contains a wealth of unifying comic detail... as well as a climax that draws plot strands together in a satisfying way.
Posted May 18, 2021
23
Blue (2021)
This is a boxing movie that dispenses with many of the conventions typical to the genre, not least the idea that life's problems can be solved in the ring.
Posted May 17, 2021
24
2/5
Homunculus (2021)
The longer the film goes on, the harder it is to say who "Homunculus" is for.
Posted May 17, 2021
25
2.5/5
Gekijoban: Signal (2021)
The climax is packed with positive messaging that is thuddingly obvious.
Posted May 14, 2021
26
4/5
27
4/5
Ride or Die (2021)
[Ryuichi Hiroki] is a director with visual flair, and a sure sensitivity to his characters' inner lives.
Posted Apr 14, 2021
28
3/5
In Those Days (2020)
29
3.5/5
The Murders of Oiso (2019)
Cinematographer Timliu Liu conjures a succession of striking compositions, while Eiji Iwamoto's sparse electric guitar soundtrack maintains the downcast mood.
Posted Apr 8, 2021
30
3.5/5
Under the Turquoise Sky (2021)
Just when the film seems stuck in a repetitious rut, like the van's wheels spinning in the mud, it begins to give us glimpses of another, more mysterious Mongolia.
Posted Apr 8, 2021
31
2.5/5
First Love (2021)
If raw and real is what you want, see "Life: Untitled."
Posted Apr 7, 2021
32
4.5/5
It's inspiring to see audiences willing to grapple with this emotionally and intellectually demanding story time after time.
Posted Apr 5, 2021
33
3.5/5
Junk Head (2017)
As a triumph of single-mindedness over common sense, "Junk Head" is pretty inspirational.
Posted Apr 1, 2021
34
3.5/5
Kiba: The Fangs of Fiction (2021)
As Megumi, Matsuoka exudes a quirky charm and warmth that look uncalculated, but turn out to be facets in a finely layered jewel of a performance.
Posted Mar 26, 2021
35
5/5
Girlfight (2000)
As they say about boxing, it's the subtle blows that get to you most.
Posted Mar 25, 2021
36
3.5/5
Kontora (2019)
It makes its points more by poetic metaphor, though it is also firmly grounded in the real, including the darker sides of its characters' psyches.
Posted Mar 17, 2021
37
4/5
Aristocrats (2021)
"Aristocrats" isn't a cliched worlds-collide sort of comedy.
Posted Feb 25, 2021
38
4/5
A masterful portrait of a lifelong outsider trying to find a place in a society that hands out few second chances.
Posted Feb 10, 2021
39
3/5
Suicide Forest Village (2021)
40
2/5
The Cinderella Addiction (2021)
For all the cleverness of Watanabe's screenplay, with its symmetries and foreshadowing, it's also shallow, both in its characterizations and its desire to shock the audience.
Posted Feb 10, 2021
41
3/5
42
3.5/5
43
3.5/5
Woman of the Photographs (2020)
"Woman of the Photographs" has a way of getting under your skin.
Posted Jan 13, 2021
44
4/5
In "Hold Me Back" [Non] shows that she can be both the ingenue audiences have come to love and an experienced actor able to carry a film.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
45
2.5/5
Silent Tokyo (2020)
Takafumi Hatano's "Silent Tokyo" offers a tolerable alternative, like having a KFC bucket in place of a turkey dinner.
Posted Dec 29, 2020
46
47
3/5
Mrs. Noisy (2020)
"Mrs. Noisy" makes a worthy plea for more tolerance in a society that lacks it, with those unable or unwilling to conform pushed outside the circle of wa.
Posted Dec 7, 2020
48
3.5/5
Underdog (2020)
In its gritty realism, in and out of the ring, it's the best boxing film to come out of Japan since "100 Yen Love."
Posted Nov 30, 2020
49
2/5
Tezuka's Barbara (2019)
"Tezuka's Barbara" is one of the most aesthetically striking movies to hit Japanese theaters this year. If only the rest of the film were so alluring.
Posted Nov 30, 2020
50
4/5