Tag: Japan

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Animation Features Movies

Scarlet
(Hateshinaki Sukaretto,
果てしなきスカーレット,
lit. Endless Scarlet)

Director – Mamoru Hosoda – 2025 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 111m

****

Trapped in the Otherworld, a limbo preceding the afterlife, Princess Scarlet seeks revenge on her uncle who has killed her father the King – anime reimagining of Hamlet is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 13th

Walking across a vast desert and dying of thirst, a redhead recalls how she came to be there. Those were happier times in sixteenth century Denmark, when Scarlet (voice: Mana Ashida from Lonely Castle in the Mirror, Keiichi Hara, 2022; The House of the Lost on the Cape, Shinya Kawatsura, 2021; Poupelle of Chimney Town, Yusuke Hirota, 2020; Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro, 2013) – for it is she – spent time with her father King Amleth (voice: Masachika Ichimura from Giovanni’s Island, 2014), drawing his portrait outdoors. Amleth always had the best interests of his people at heart.

Yet there was always a dark foreboding in the background – Scarlet’s severe mother Gertrude (voice: Yuki Saito from The Third Murder, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2017) who ripped up her drawing, her power-hungry, warmongering Uncle Claudius (voice: Koji Yakusho from Perfect Days, Wim Wenders, 2023; Belle, Mamoru Hosoda, 2021, The Third Murder; Cure, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997; Shall We Dance, Masayuki Suo, 1996) with his greedy eyes on the throne.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

A Pale View of Hills
(Toi Yamanamino Hikari,
遠い山なみの光)

Director – Kei Ishikawa – 2025 – UK, Japan, Poland – Cert. 12a – 123m

From the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro

***1/2

An aspiring journalist in 1982 England delves into her mother’s past life in 1952 Nagasaki and unearths dark family secrets – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 13th

As will be seen from the above logline description, this essentially plays out in two timelines.

One is in Nagasaki, Japan in 1952, less than a decade after the dropping of the atomic bomb, where the married and barely visibly pregnant Etsuko (Suzo Hirose from Lupin III the First, Takashi Yamazaki, 2019; The Third Murder, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2017; The Boy and the Beast, Mamoru Hosoda, 2015; Our Little Sister, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2015) befriends Sachiko (Fumi Nikaido from River’s Edge, Isao Yukisada, 2018; Himizu, Sion Sono, 2011), the mother of local waif Mariko (Mio Suzuki), who lives in an isolated shack near the river and plans to emigrate to the US with a man named ‘Frank’.

The other is in a town in England somewhere near Greenham Common, Berkshire, in 1982, where aspiring journalist Niki (Camilla Aiko from Dr.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

All You Need is Kill
(Oru Yu Nido izu Kiru)

Directors – Kenichiro Akimoto, Yukinori Yakamura – 2025 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 86m

***1/2

A woman trapped in a repeating time loop dies fighting alien plant monsters, joins forces with a man in a similar time loop – animated science fiction tale is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 27th

This began as a science fiction novel first published in Japan in 2004. Ten years later, as is the way of things in Japan, it appeared as a manga. It also formed the basis of the Tom Cruise / Emily Blunt vehicle Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman, 2014). The novel is about a cowardly military man killed in a skirmish with unexpected invading aliens who wakes up and realises he’s reliving that first day of the alien invasion. He gets killed over and over again, and wakes up and relives the same day over and over again. Similarly trapped in a time loop is a brave military woman fighting the aliens. It’s a military hardware alien action movie using the looped repeating day structure of Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993).

While I recommend the 2014 movie, and have no issue mentioning it in terms of contextualising the new film, I also recommend you put it firmly to one side and don’t try and base whatever expectations you might have about the new film on it.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

LUPIN THE IIIRD
The Movie
The Immortal Bloodline
(RUPAN SANSEI ZA MUBÎ
Fujimi no Ketsuzoku,
LUPIN THE IIIRD
THE MOVIE
不死身の血族)

Original comic books created by Monkey Punch © Monkey Punch All rights reserved. © TMS All rights reserved.

Director – Takeshi Koike – 2025 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 93m

***

Lupin and his friends are lured to a zombie-populated island run by an immortal being where a toxic gas kills people after 24 hours – out in UK cinemas on Saturday, February 21st

Lupin III (or LUPIN THE IIIRD as he’s called here) has been around in Japan a very long time, first in the manga created by artist Monkey Punch in 1967 and later in live action movies, animated TV series, animated features and various other media formats.

© MP / T

You be forgiven for thinking that makes the franchise inaccessible for the newcomer, but this latest instalment opens with a burst of fuzz guitar and black and white images of ink clouds in liquid and drawings of the five main characters, who are helpfully introduced one by one, invaluable to the newcomer but equally, given the stylish drawings and the rapid pace at which they are introduced, a pleasure also for the viewer already familiar. Thus, we meet master thief (and narrator) Arsène Lupin III (voice: Kenichi Kurita) (“the cops are always after me”), his gunslinging partner Daisuke Jigen (voice: Akio Otsuka), his friend Goemon the swordsman (voice: Daisuke Namikawa), his friendly rival the curvaceous Fujiko Mine (voice: Miyuki Sawashiro), briefly zipping up cleavage that appears have been considerably enlarged for this particular film, and his nemesis Inspector Zenigata (voice: Koichi Yamadira) who has failed to apprehend him for decades, here introduced as an ace even though elsewhere in the franchise he’s pretty hapless.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Little Amélie
or
The Character of Rain
(Amélie
et
la Métaphysique des Tubes)

Directors – Maïlys Vallade & Liane-Cho Han – 2025 – France – Cert. PG – 77m

*****

A Belgian diplomat’s baby daughter growing up in Japan comes to realise, by her third birthday, that she is not God – out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 13th; previews Saturday, 7th and Sunday, 8th February

In the beginning was God. At least, that’s how the new-born Amélie (French language version voice: Loïse Charpentier) sees herself. She is, essentially, a tube which swallows, digests and ejects (as per the film’s French language title). She has a perfect command of verbal language, so sees no need to say anything. That said, she makes great use of voice-over throughout the piece. She remains motionless, practising “the gift of serenity”. “Your child is a vegetable”, proclaims a doctor to the child’s parents. She remains in this state until her second birthday, when life is interrupted by an earthquake – nothing significant in the wider scheme of things, but a momentous event in the interior life of a small child. She attempts to speak, but to her horror the words in her head don’t emerge, only baby noises.

Amelie is the third child of Patrick (French voice: Marc Arnaud) and Danièle (French voice: Laetitia Coryn), and has two older siblings, Juliette (French voice: Haylee Issembourg) and André (French voice: Isaac Schoumsky).… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

What Should We
Have Done?
(Do Sureba Yokatta Ka?,
どうすればよかったか？)

Director – Fujino Tomoaki – 2023 – Japan – Cert. N/C 15+ – 102m

***1/2

Remarkable diary film of the director’s sister who has undiagnosed schizophrenia as his parents deprive her of a decent quality of life for 30 years – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2026 which runs from Friday, 6th February to Tuesday, 31st March

Darkness. The sound of a woman angrily, relentlessly, berating her daughter. At least, that’s what it sounds like. Director Fujino Tomoaki clarifies. He’s not trying to explain how his sister got schizophrenia, nor what schizophrenia is.

His elder sister was smarter than him. She spent four years trying to get into Medical School. One night in 1983, at home, she went completely berserk, waking everybody up. She was taken to a psychiatric hospital, who found nothing wrong with her. Tomoaki just doesn’t believe it. Another night at 2am she walked into his room, sobbing. He became worried that if she had another episode, he’d have to fight back, and the consequences might destroy his life. After his father, a medical research academic like his mother, disagreed with a psychiatrist’s thesis as to what was wrong with her, he got a job that enabled him to leave home and escape.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Kaneko’s Commissary
(Kaneko Sashiireten,
金子差入店)

Director – Go Furukawa – 2025 – Japan – Cert. N/C 15+ – 125m

****

An ex-con runs a service delivering clothing, other supplies and messages from loved ones to convicted prisoners – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2026 which runs from Friday, 6th February to Tuesday, 31st March

A young mum, babe in arms, takes bags for her husband to a drop-off facility / creche so she can visit him in prison. The helpful assistant informs her that the commissary will be unable to accept most of the contents of the bag – basically, any clothing other than underwear. And off she goes for a prison visit with her husband, who has anger management issues and takes out on her the fact that she failed to visit last month, telling her, “it’s easy for you to abandon me.” His unabated rating and verbal abuse eventually drives her to a primal scream before she walks out, leaving him to ask, redundantly, after she’s left, if their child has been born yet.

His visit isn’t from her but the self-announced “Kaneko from Hosoda’s Commissary”, who has a deliver from his wife; divorce papers to sign.… Read the rest

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Animation Art Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music Shorts Top Ten

Top Ten Movies
(and more,
excluding re-releases)
2025

Work in progress – subject to change. Because I am still watching movies released in 2025, so it’s always possible that a new title could usurp the number one in due course.

All numbered films received either a theatrical, online or home media release in the UK between 01/01/25 and 31/12/25.

This version excludes re-releases (Battleship Potemkin, The Piano Teacher or Hard Boiled, among others) would top everything here). In addition to re-releases, this version also excludes films seen in festivals which haven’t had any other UK release in 2025. For that even longer list, click here.

Finally, last year’s list is here.

Top Ten Movies (and more) 2025

Please click on titles to see reviews.

The numbering will mostly be added later when I’ve watched more of the outstanding 2024 titles, and they have stopped moving around. So, currently, positions in this list should be taken with a pinch of salt.

*****

1=. Flow (2024, Belgium, France, Latvia)

1=. The Glassworker (2024, Pakistan, Spain)

1=. One Battle After Another (2025, US)

1=. Riefenstahl (2024, Germany)

1=. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024, Iran, Germany, France)

6=. Mars Express (2023, France)

6=. On Swift Horses (2024, US)

6=. … Read the rest

Categories
Animation Art Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music Shorts Top Ten

Top Ten Movies
(and more)
2025

Work in progress – subject to change. Because I am still watching movies released in 2025, so it’s always possible that a new title could usurp the number one in due course.

All numbered films received either a theatrical, online or home media release in the UK between 01/01/25 and 31/12/25.

This version includes re-releases, but those aren’t numbered. It’s hard to imagine movies improving on Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, Haneke’s The Piano Teacher or Woo’s Hard Boiled.

In addition to re-releases, this version also includes films seen in festivals which haven’t had any wider UK release in 2025.

Finally, last year’s list is here.

Top Ten Movies (and more) 2025

Please click on titles to see reviews.

The numbering will mostly be added later when I’ve watched more of the outstanding 2024 titles, and they have stopped moving around. So, currently, positions in this list should be taken with a pinch of salt.

*****

Babe (1995, Australia – reissue)

Battleship Potemkin / Music by Pet Shop Boys (1925, USSR – reissue, new score)

Brief Encounter (1945, UK – reissue; also in Film Tottenham’s BFI / Love & Obsession programme)

A Clockwork Orange (1971, US, UK – in Film Tottenham’s Cinema for All / 100 Years of Community Cinema programme)

The Devil’s Backbone (2001, Mexico, Spain – reissue)

Dogtooth (2009, Greece – reissue)

1=. … Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

YMCA Baseball Team
(YMCA Yagudan,
YMCA야구단)

Director – Kim Hyun-seok – 2002 – South Korea – Cert. – 104m

***

In 1905, as the Japanese take over the running of their country, a small group of Koreans form a baseball team to defeat the Japanese – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2025 which runsin cinemas from Wednesday, November 5th to Tuesday, November 18th

A lightweight sports comedy loosely inspired by historical events, this is set in 1905, by which time the Japanese were moving to occupy Korea. Lee Ho-chang (Song Kang-ho) is playing soccer on a local plateau when the ball goes off the edge and into the local YMCA missionary compound below. While retrieving the ball, he is confronted by US-schooled baseball enthusiast Min Jung-rim (Kim Hye-soo).

Much comedy is derived (albeit not that successfully for Western audiences) from Ho-chang’s taking a romantic liking to her, even though she has not the slightest interest in him, preferring (when he turns up later in the narrative) Japanese-schooled Oh Day-hyun (Kim Joo-hyuk) who is already highly skilled at baseball, which arrived in Japan in 1872, some 30 years before it came to Korea. Also in the team is bespectacled Ryu Kwang-tae (Hwang Jung-min), whose bureaucrat father is collaborating with the Japanese administration.… Read the rest