Blog Archives

Familial duty and responsibility to one’s parents makes Chronicle of My Mother a film that will resonate with Asian audiences far more than for the rest of us. And yes, the title is going to make most people think they’re about to see a Japanese version of Pedro Almodóvar’s All About My Mother, but the two films have little in common other than the titular parental unit. In Harada Masato’s (Inugami) lyrical and poetic meditation on family, … (read more)

13 Assassins begins with a man committing seppuku. He preformed this act to bring attention to Lord Naritsugu a somewhat vile and sadistic man. This will not be the only bloody death before this tale ends. Continue reading →

Movies about mountain climbing are usually epic tales of human survival, and The Summit: A Chronicle of Stones is another fine example of this genre. We live in an era when every peak of every mountain has been conquered, but it is not uncommon for even today’s mountain climbers to run into trouble during their expeditions, despite having available to them sophisticated equipment, greater understanding about the human body’s functioning at high altitudes, and knowledge passed on by previous generations … (read more)

Once a successful businessman, Yosuke is now unemployed and penniless. Taro, a friend, tells him about a golden Buddha he hid in an old wooden house overlooking a red bridge on the Noto Peninsula of the Japan Sea. After Taro dies, Yosuke heads off in the hope of finding the treasure and turning his life around, and meets a beautiful woman named Saeko who lives in an old wooden house, just as Taro described. Saeko confides in him that she … (read more)