koji yakusho
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In Extremis: The World of Kanako
In loving memory of Richard Corliss, who early on championed low and high art in Asian cinema In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the sheltered titular character exposes her pre-adolescent consciousness. Willing to navigate uncharted waters, she follows a dapper rabbit, even allowing herself to fall into the hole he’s entered. Jefferson Airplane sticks with this plot point in the ‘60s acid-anthem “White Rabbit,” adding au courant psychedelics to scramble the child’s perception: Tell ‘em a hookah-smoking caterpillar/Has given you the call. In book and song, Alice is in her element: She basks in unexpected encounters with extraordinary characters and […]
by Howard Feinstein on Dec 2, 2015 -
Hawaii Critics Notebook #1
To be a film festival in today’s era of instant-streaming gratification and downloading-at-home culture means organizing events and creating a community beyond the traditional movie screen, and this year’s edition of the Hawaii International Film Festival certainly promised its patrons far more than a typical film-going experience. Out with the hot dogs, seating rows, frigid air conditioning, and desultory Q&A’s of your usual festival situation, and—for a few special nights at least—in with artisanal food trucks, outdoor screenings, martial arts demos, live music performances, cosplay displays, lengthy photo ops with various stars, and even, oddly enough, quite a few films. […]
by Jason Sanders on Oct 22, 2012 -
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Tokyo Sonata
KYÔKO KOIZUMI, INOWAKI KAI, TERUYUKI KAGAWA, AND YÛ KOYANAGI IN DIRECTOR KIYOSHI KUROSAWA’S TOKYO SONATA. COURTESY REGENT RELEASING. Over the past decade or so, Kiyoshi Kurosawa has established himself as one of the most interesting genre directors in world cinema. The Japanese writer-director was born in Kobe in 1955, and first made 8mm shorts while studying Sociology at Rikko University. He began directing features in the early 1980s, working on direct-to-video titles, including yakuza movies, and studied under the tutelage of directors Shinji Somai and Kazuhiko Hasegawa. He then had minor successes with films like the college-set drama The Excitement […]
by Nick Dawson on Mar 13, 2009
