Asian Film
In a career that spanned four decades, prolific novelist Shinji Fujiwara explored a wide range of genres in his work, though is most famed for his 1950s suspense stories. The widespread popularity of his work quickly lent itself to the medium of film, and he would eventually be dubbed “film’s favourite novelist” due to the
The generally agreed definition of a snuff film is a real (not staged) filmed murder. In some cases, it is viewed for arousal. However, this is somewhat incorrect, as by this definition, any video depicting the death of a person, purposeful or accidental, can fall under this moniker depending on the viewer. The term, in
Nighty Night: Midnight Nightmares is a 1986 independent Japanese horror anthology, directed by Hirohisa Kokusho. The film was certainly unrecognized upon its initial release, receiving an extremely limited VHS run in Japan but soon faded into obscurity. It wasn’t long before the film was considered lost media, with no known copies of these VHS releases
My Mother’s Eyes is a 2023 Japanese science fiction psychological thriller, written and directed by Takeshi Kushida. No stranger behind the camera, Kushida is also the creative mind behind the short films FLOW (2003), KANNNON (2004), Reincarnation (2008), I AM A CAMERA (2013), The Earth was Bluish (2015), and VOICE (2018), as well as the
Science fiction, often preoccupied with technology and artificial beings, can sometimes seem overly intricate, neglecting the mundane facets of life. However, this stereotype is not only unfair but also doesn’t hold true for Junta Yamaguchi’s body of work. From his debut feature, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020) Yamaguchi has masterfully blended the time travel
The Ghost Station is a 2022 South Korean horror thriller, written and directed by Yong-ki Jeong, with additional writing from Soyoung Lee, c, and Koji Shiraishi. Takahashi and Shiraishi are incredibly well-known in Japanese cinema, working on such horror classics as Ringu (1998) and Noroi (2005) respectively. On the other hand, Yong-ki Jeong has worked
One of my current hobbies is searching thrift stores for weird, interesting, or hard-to-find DVDs. With streaming networks dominating the distribution channels, and more and more media disappearing from these networks before ever seeing a hard copy release, I feel somewhat like an archivist hunting for treasure. Albeit, this treasure is not found in majestical
With the turn of a new decade, new opportunities were sought by film studio Daiei. In 1970, Daiei on the verge of bankruptcy, entered into a partnership with fellow struggling studio Nikkatsu, forming Dainichi Eihai. By pooling their resources, the aim was to fight against Toei’s market dominance: by the 1970s Toei had perfected their
Death Powder is a 1986 Japanese cyberpunk body horror film, written and directed by Shigeru Izumiya. Izumiya is mostly known as a poet/folk singer with a career spanning from the 1970s that is still ongoing, with a huge discography of dozens of albums. Outside of music, Izumiya is a prolific actor who has around 150
Despite being one of Japan’s biggest film studios throughout the late 40s and 50s during the golden age of Japanese cinema, Daiei was struggling by the mid-60s and had to slash budgets for their productions. This eventually led to a merger with Nikkatsu in 1970, followed by bankruptcy in 1971. Somewhat overlooked is Daiei’s 1968-1969