Asian

“What secrets lie deep in the buried forest? Veteran filmmaker Oguri Kohei, the director of such films as The Sting of Death and Sleeping Man, helms The Buried Forest (a.k.a. Umoregi), one of a select group of Japanese films entered in competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. With a cinematic look seemingly pulled straight from yesteryear, the film kicks off by focusing on a high school girl named Machi (Karen). To break up the monotony of summer, Machi decides that she and her friends should have some fun and start telling each other stories.Read More »

A demonic reincarnation of a Japanese general from the 10th century appears in the early 20th century Tokyo with a mission to destroy the blooming city.Read More »

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In mid-career, while he is on a winning streak, and in the middle of a fight he is winning, a young boxer is revolted by the violence of the game. He allows himself to be beaten up and quits the match and the sport. He also leaves his wife and child and lives alone with his moth-eaten old dog, all the while losing his sight. Years later, he is hunted down by a young man who is ambitious to become a prize-winning boxer. Persistence pays off, and he eventually persuades the ex-boxer to be his manager and trainer. The boy begins his rise to success, though he has a stormy relationship with his manager.Read More »

Based on the best-selling novel by Hiroyuki Itsuki.Read More »

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Six years after leaving the secular life to become a Buddhist monk, Beob-wun is still haunted by memories Young-ju, his ex-lover. He tries to find the path to the truth and meets Ji-san another monk who doesn’t even have his holy orders. Their association leads to greater pain and conflicts for Beob-wun. Ji-san dies in the snow, as partly a man resembling Buddha and a man drowning in the ways of the secular world. Beob-wun cremates Ji-san’s corpse and seeks out Young-ju and his mom. He also meets Ok-sun, a woman Ji-san could not forget. These encounters reinforce his belief that the ways of the world are meaningless and continues on his path to find the truth.Read More »

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
On the same day of this word created from the depth of despair, the Christ passed away on the cross, A.D.2015, Virus has been spreading in many cities worldwide. It is a suicidal disease. The virus is infected by pictures. People, once infected, certainly come down with the disease, which leads to death. They have no way of fighting against the disease filled with fear and despair. The media calls the disease the Lemming Syndrome.Read More »

An interesting documentary about an interesting man, to say the least. Kazuo Hara follows up his controversial work “The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On” with a bio-documentary about Mitsuharu Inoue, a famous and popular (especially among women) post-war Japanese writer. The film follows the last few years of the life of Inoue before he dies of cancer in 1992. The film starts out as a usual bio-documentary like many others, but the second half of the film digs into the writer’s past and comes up with some unexpected discoveries.Read More »

Every Monday at 6 pm a young woman is murdered in the subway. The psychiatrist Setsuko Suma is called in to assist the police. The trail leads to another psychiatrist – Dr Rei Aku – who Setsuko used to date. As she get closer to the solution, she gets more and more convinced that Aku’s deprogramming of former sectmembers is important.Read More »

A haunting tale of destiny and life’s unpredictability: an elite bureaucrat, humbled by an incident which ruined his promising career, has a chance encounter with a glamorous hostess, heartbroken by her husband’s death.Read More »