Japanese

Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami's novel is transferred to the screen by Anh Hung Tran

2 Mar 2011

(15) 133min Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has a unique voice in contemporary fiction, both hugely imaginative and intensely intimate. But with this adaptation of one of his most popular books, French-Vietnamese filmmaker Anh Hung Tran fails to…

One Thousand Paper Cranes

Bringing the magic of origami to the stage

5 Oct 2009

An actor preparing for a role has to do many things, but learning origami isn’t usually one of them. Alongside the usual checklist of remembering lines and researching characters, however, the performers in One Thousand Paper Cranes also had to turn…

Thirst

Korean vampire flick

1 Oct 2009

The success of Twilight has inevitably paved the way for a glut of vampire- themed movies of varying merit. But Park Chan-wook’s Thirst is well worth sinking your teeth into. Admittedly overlong and occasionally disjointed, the film nevertheless offers…

The National Theatre of Scotland - Dolls

22 Jan 2009

Cinema and theatre have a long history of sharing stories. Plays are adapted into films, and every second blockbuster seems to flip easily into a Broadway musical. However, what tends to happen is a straight transfer of plotline and character. In…

Naked Youth

10 Apr 2008

TEEN DRAMA (15) 97min (Yume DVD retail) As Noel Burch in his key tome on Japanese cinema, To The Distant Observer, has noted, the disaffected youth film was popular in the aspirant years of the late 50s and early 60s. This film, Nagisa Oshima’s 1960…

Nanakusa

28 Feb 2008

There’s no such thing as a Japanese restaurant. So David Wan concluded during a fact-finding mission to the Far East last year – just as he was planning to open up such an establishment in Glasgow. There was no shortage of specialist bars selling sushi…

Eat - No 1 Sushi Bar

17 Jan 2008

THE MEAL Stories of fine Scottish wild salmon being caught, frozen and flown to high end restaurants in Japan are closer to the truth than you might think. Why then does sushi remain such niche cuisine in this country? In Scotland, Japanese…

The Duel Project (Aragami and 2LDK)

17 Jan 2008

DOUBLE FEATURE (18) 145min (Tartan Asia Extreme DVD rental/retail) The result of a challenge given to two promising young Japanese directors by Shinya Kawai, the producer of Ring, this taut double feature is an exercise in disciplined filmmaking.