When the time comes to publish the best new features I saw in 2023, it is as good as guaranteed that Keishi Kondo’s New Religion will be on that list. It is not simply up my alley: right now it feels as … Continue reading OAFF: New Religion (2022)
A man drunkenly staggers along a beach-side road: Nobuo, played by Hidetoshi Kawaya. On the street he discovers a piece of paper, upon which someone has written the word ‘heaven’. This leads him to wonder if, by some unexpected change, … Continue reading OAFF: Is This Heaven? (2023)
24-year-old Nozomi (Erika Karata) had a respectable job at an advertising agency. After incessant and exhausting overtime, she quit. Now she works at a convenience store and pays the rent on a one-room apartment, all the time hiding from her … Continue reading OAFF: When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty (2022)
Since his daughter’s murder seven years ago, Katsu Higuchi (Shogen) has lived in a haze of grief and alcohol. Once a successful author, he has not written anything new in years. His ex-wife Sumiko (Megumi) has remarried. When a letter … Continue reading OAFF: December (2022)
The devastating fire that struck Paris’ Notre-Dame cathedral in 1999 was always going to lend itself to a film adaptation. While it is surprising to see it be made quite so soon, it is even more surprising to discover what … Continue reading AFFFF: Notre-Dame on Fire (2022)
On its final voyage across the ocean before it is decommissioned, the luxury liner Poseidon is struck by a tsunami that capsizes the vessel. With much of the crew and passengers dead, a small group of survivors led by firebrand … Continue reading REVIEW: The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
The complicated links between Japan and Taiwan – a Japanese territory from 1895 to 1945 – seem a popular subject matter for contemporary Japanese cinema. In recent times the issues of anti-Taiwanese racism, the migrant experience, and shared cultural experience … Continue reading REVIEW: My Identity (2019)
In the aftermath of the American Civil War, former soldier Johnny Hawk (Kirk Douglas) – a man famed for fighting Native Americans – is hired to escort a wagon train across Oregon. His mission runs foul of a local Sioux … Continue reading REVIEW: The Indian Fighter (1955)
I have emerged from Sam Mendes’ new drama Empire of Light more than a little ambivalent about it; indeed, I find myself tremendously frustrated. This English drama, set in a seaside down in the early 1980s, stars Olivia Colman as a miserable … Continue reading REVIEW: Empire of Light (2022)
In 1969, director Yoji Yamada helmed It’s Tough Being a Man, a domestic comedy that became an unexpected hit in Japanese cinemas – so much so that by the end of the year Yamada had already made its sequel. The film … Continue reading REVIEW: Tora-San, Wish You Were Here (2019)
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