Salaryman Kintaro / Sarariman Kintaro (1999)

Anyone coming to Salaryman Kintaro expecting a “typical” Takashi Miike movie will be surprised, to say the least. Kintaro is a young salaryman now working in the offices of Yamato construction. His honest company runs up against corruption in the government and construction industry and he tries to fight it head on, only to eventually …

Time Traveler / Girl Who Leapt Through Time / Toki o kakeru shojo(2010)

Yasutaka Tsutsui's story of the Girl Who Leapt Through Time has been one of Japan's most popular teen stories of the post-war era, adapted to movies or TV at least ten times since it first appeared in 1965. The most famous of these is the much-acclaimed animated version of 2006, which altered the original story …

Inugami (2001)

There are few more complex movies about the meeting of modernity and traditional religious and Japanese folk beliefs than Inugami, though it requires a submersion into a setting as isolated and unusual as in Himatsuri. High in the mountain interior of Shikoku island, the Bonomiya family are preparing to celebrate the 900 Year Rites of …

Sharkskin Man and Peach Hip Girl / Samehada otoko to momojiri onna(1998)

Samehada has stolen some money from the yakuza and they are after him. Toshiko is a young woman running away from her creepy “uncle.” They meet after a car crash while he is running through the woods in his jockey shorts to escape the yakuza who found his mountain cabin. The yakuza keep chasing him, …

21st Century Pinku — Three Movies

The success of Flower and Snake suggests taking a brief look at what was happening in the more traditional pinku genre films being made in the earlier part of the century. Like most pinku films from earlier years, The Japanese Wife Next Door is aimed at pure titillation but in what will be a more …

Great Yokai War / (2005)

The great and evil Lord Kato returns to wreak vengeance on Tokyo, and the only thing standing in his way this time is Tadashi, an elementary schoolboy. Tadashi is small for his age, bullied by his schoolmates, and deserted by his parents after a divorce and living with his senile grandfather in a village far …

Million Yen Girl / Hyakuman-en to nigamushi onna (2008)

No matter where you go, there you are. This is certainly the problem faced by Suzuko, the Million Yen Girl of the title. Quiet, shy, unassuming, she keeps finding herself in situations that might draw her out of her shell and then withdrawing into it and running away again. This cycle begins when another waitress …

Marebito (2004)

No one more personified 21st century J-horror than Takashi Shimizu, who wrote and directed the Ju-on movies. Even when not making Ju-on features, he almost never directed outside the horror genre which Ju-on had helped revive and re-define. Marebito is one of the rare exceptions.* In many ways it looks like a Shinya Tsukamoto movie, …

Villon’s Wife / Viyon no tsuma (2009)

One of several movies made to mark the centennial of the famous Japanese novelist Osamu Dazai, Villon's Wife visits the post-war world in which the novel first appeared, providing a portrait of the perfect wife with a husband who doesn't deserve her. Otani is a famous writer who is also an alcoholic, as famous for …

Summer Days with Coo / Kappa no Ku to natsuyasumi (2007)

Coo is a kappa, a legendary water creature of Japanese folklore. By accident, young Koichi in modern Tokyo finds what looks like an interesting fossil, but as he cleans it in water, the kappa gradually returns to life. The kappa is immensely grateful and, in the way of animated features everywhere, becomes friends with Koichi. …