The Japan Society Review

Directed by Mori Tatsuya Samuragochi Mamoru is a figure buried in infamy in the Japanese media. He became a familiar name as the composer of music in a romantic style, but what really got him prominence in media stories [...] Review by Roger Macy

Directed by Hara Kazuo Hara’s film gives the briefest of briefings on the historical background before spending nearly all of its four hours following a group of ex-workers during their eight-year struggle to get compensation from [...] Review by Roger Macy

Directed by Yakumo Seiji The story is set in the prestigious all-girls Virgin Mary Christian academy where we find our main characters; the members of the literary club chaired by the principal’s daughter Itsumi. She is admired and [...] Review by Morgane Chinal-Dargent

Directed by Matsui Daigo The film focuses on the disappearance of Azumi Haruko (Aoi Yu), a 27 years old woman who lives in a suburban city and shares her house with her mother, father and grand-mother. She works as an office lady [...] Review by Morgane Chinal-Dargent

Directed by Ogigami Naoko The movie has been well-received at a series of international festivals this year. Using a pioneering story-line, it has also done something contemporary filmmakers overlook: it flatters its audience. Review by Roger Macy

Directed by Kumakiri Kazuyoshi “It seems likely that Kumakiri will continue to probe the darker corners of society and experience.” The film starts with a mêlée of jump-cuts depicting a very angry man in his thirties who is seen to be drunk [...] Review by Roger Macy

Directed by Katabuchi Sunao 72 years after US airforces dropped The Little Boy nuclear bomb, former Ghibli employee Katabuchi Sunao explores this devastating historical event through a wonderfully vivid new story. Adapted from Fumiyo's [...] Review by Poppy Cosyns

Directed by Koike Atsushi The film starts with a brief landscape shot. The camera is waiting patiently in an old woman’s kitchen. She will speak when she’s ready, and begins to tell us how her 70 years of service at the temple started. Review by Roger Macy

Directed by Imamura Ayako Ayako started as no cyclist but made a winning opening move. She heads to her local specialist bike shop in Nagoya and recruits a staff-member there, Hotta Tetsu, as her second camera-person and [...] Review by Roger Macy

Directed by Marcos Centeno Martín In 2014, Marcos Centeno Martín released Ainu. Pathways to Memory, “which portrays the problems of identity and assimilation of the Ainu people in Japan and means of preserving and disseminating their [...] Review by Susan Meehan