JeeJa Yanin plays a teenage martial arts dynamo in the action-paced thriller from ‘Ong-Bak’ director Prachya Pinkaew.
Tag: Hiroshi Abe
‘Still Walking’ on The Criterion Channel
A family drama about absence, expectations, disappointments and acceptance, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Still Walking (Japan, 2008), is framed (and in effect defined) by the death of an eldest son. That death happened fifteen years before but the family still gathers to commemorate the memory of Junpei, who drowned saving a child swept off the nearby beach […]
‘Godzilla 2000’ – The lizard king returns on Hulu
To most American viewers, the original run of Japanese Toho Godzilla films will never be more than exercises in camp. In the age of CGI, who’s going to take a man in rubber suit stomping on toy trucks and miniature cities seriously? The country that gave birth to the lizard king, of course. After Roland […]
‘After the Storm’ on Amazon Prime
Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-Eda directs the most perceptive and compassionate films about the difficult relations that put strains on families and the generosity and understanding that helps overcome those difficulties. After the Storm (Japan, 2017) is one of his most understated family dramas, a lovely, low-key film about divorce and disappointment that, like the title […]