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In 2002, the hype for Japanese horror films was declining rapidly, as the sequels to series like “Ring” or “The Grudge” were commercially and critically unsuccessful. Even though directors such as Hideo Nakata and Takashi Shimizu came to Hollywood to helm the remakes to their films or their sequels, Hollywood had already adapted J-horror tropes to its own productions. As Jerry White points out, one of the perhaps most disappointing entries in the J-horror remakes was Jim Sonzero’s version of Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s “Pulse” (2001). Perhaps it was this particular experience which made Kurosawa change genres with his next project “Bright Future”.

Bright Future is screening at Black Movie

In general, Kurosawa is best known for his unique horror films such as “Pulse” or “Cure”, films which years after their release now unfold their true impact. At the same time, the director has also repeatedly explored the gap between youth and adults,...

Serena Motola, Seiya Matsudo and Ray Shirakawa have joined Seasons, the upcoming debut feature from Anky Cyriaque (Love and I Had a Fight), with more Japanese actors due to be added.

A tale of love, life, death and destiny that spans continents and time, the screenplay is by Oscar-nominated writer Kalman Apple (Speed for Thespians), based on an original story by Cyriaque (Seasons of a Soul). Shooting is set to begin in fall 2025 on locations in New York, London, Vancouver and Nepal.

The story follows a couple destined to fall in love but kept apart by the machinations of a vengeful soul, and a 100-year odyssey through previous lifetimes for them to finally come together.

Talks are ongoing with two high-profile Hollywood actors, in addition to further Japanese talent, who will join Canadian singer and songwriter Kreesha Turner.

Cyriaque says he has been “nurturing the dream of Seasons for ten unforgettable years.

Greek-French filmmaker Costa Gavras, Japanese director Miike Takashi and Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, whose latest film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is Oscar shortlisted, have joined the roster of speakers at International Film Festival Rotterdam for the upcoming 54th edition, running from Jan. 30 – Feb. 9.

IFFR will present two strands of conversations: Big Talks, featuring dialogues between world-renowned figures from diverse disciplines, and Tiger Talks, offering explorations of film-related themes and addressing various issues including feminism, the legacy of colonialism, and cinema’s sociopolitical role.

Additional talks will take place during the Rtm Day, IFFR’s program dedicated to Rotterdam on Jan. 31.

Furthermore, the IFFR Pro Dialogues program of industry-focused discussions will be held during the IFFR Pro Days, running between Jan. 31 – Feb. 5.

Also during the festival, IFFR will welcome further special guests to present their titles in selection, including Payal Kapadia (“All We Imagine as Light”), Jan-Willem van Ewijk (“Alpha.

Stars: Miriam Yeung Chin-Wah, Bai Ling, Lee Byung-hun, Kyōko Hasegawa | Directed by Fruit Chan, Park Chan-wook, Takashi Miike

In 2002, the horror anthology film Three was released, consisting of three horror tales from East Asian countries. The film received accolades and a sequel, which was released two-years-later in the form of Three… Extremes. The anthology follow-up collected three more horror tales from different directors, and was successful enough in the United States that its predecessor received a stateside release. Strangely enough, Three was repackaged to Western audiences as a sequel entitled Three… Extremes II.

Opening up this anthology is Dumplings, the Hong Kong entry from director Fruit Chan. Arriving at a house is Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung Chin-Wah), a formerly well-known actress who wishes to get dumplings sold by Mei (Bai Ling). They are considered the most expensive for a good reason, as the dumplings miraculously make the eater look younger.

Asian-American films, at least the ones we have been seeing in Amp, share many similarities. Usually family dramas, even if of different sorts, with bright and polished cinematography, and most of the time, a rather positive message in the end, to the point that many of them look quite similar. As such, it is a joy to deal with a film that strays quite away from this ‘norm’, with director, actor, editor and fight choreographer Leroy Nguyen mentioning Hong Kong action films, particularly the work of Jackie Chan, along with Takashi Miike, Takeshi Kitano and Quentin Tarantino as inspirations for his filmmaking. At the same time, though, the drama is not missing either.

The Brokenhearted review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative

Sonny, a weary small-time hoodlum that has been missing for the past six months, returns to his old neighborhood and stumbles upon a rather dire situation.

The live-action adaptation of Sega’s “Like a Dragon” video game series, and the first since the 2007 film “Like a Dragon” by Takashi Miike, was one of the most anticipated series of the year, considering the popularity of the game. What the creators presented on Amazon Prime is a series that borrows the characters and setting of the original 2005 Yakuza game as well as its 2016 remake Yakuza Kiwami but the story is a loose adaptation and follows an original plot, though some major plot-points are retained. Let us see how they fared.

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The story unfolds in two parallel axes. In the first one, in 1995, Kazuma and three other youths from the orphanage he grew up in, Yumi, Akira, and Miho, successfully heist a local arcade, only to realize it is one actually run by the the Dojima Family, a powerful yakuza organization that rules Kamurocho.

Japanese author Hirai Tarô took his pen name, Edogawa Rampo, as an homage to the American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Like his idol, he produced numerous stories that incorporated mystery and horror elements in various admixtures, and exhibited a similar fascination with mental abnormalities and (perhaps more so in Rampo’s case) sexual perversities. The term that came to be associated with Rampo’s work starting in the late 1920s was “erotic grotesque nonsense,” delineating a sensibility that outrageously mixed together sex, violence, and a dark sense of humor in ways that bring to mind the surrealist movement percolating to a boil in Paris at around the same time.

Rampo Noir was the unholy brainchild of producer Miyazaki Dai, who had unleashed Miike Takashi’s Ichi the Killer on the world a few years earlier. He hand-selected the four stories to be adapted and then recruited the directors: two industry...

The Onimusha series is getting ready for a comeback. Capcom revealed Onimusha: Way of the Sword at The Game Awards, lining it up for a 2026 launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam. The English trailer is age-gated, so check that out here and watch the Japanese trailer below. Onimusha: Way of the Sword Announcement Trailer Related: Onimusha Games Get Anime With Takashi Miike as Chief Director The first entry in the Onimusha series debuted on PlayStation 2 back in 2001, and the series has sold over 8.7 million copies around the world since.  Source: Capcom...

With Indonesia’s first film market taking place during Jaff, the enthusiasm for the festival was even bigger, in a way that is actually quite contagious, particularly since the overwhelming majority of the audience were in their 20s, with their attitude giving the whole thing a party essence that was quite appealing. The program was also interesting, with the local films taking a rather large part of the program, allowing for new discoveries in an industry that is dominated by horror movies, but actually produces a number of other genres. Also of interest is the fact that the local productions seem to move more towards mainstream paths, something that also dictates the festival’s program, in contrast to European film festivals who usually pick the arthouse path.

Without further ado, take a look at our coverage of Jaff

Film Review: A Brother and 7 Siblings (2024) by Yandy Laurens

Dimas Bagus Triatma...

Can you survive a world dominated by cats? From Executive Director Takashi Miike (Audition), anime series Nyaight of the Living Cat is coming to Crunchyroll in 2025.

Claw into the official trailer for Nyaight of the Living Cat below! The series is an adaptation of the manga written by Hawkman and illustrated by Mecha-Roots.

Here’s the official synopsis:

“Run! The Adorable Cats Are Here! In 20Xx, the world is dominated by cats. A virus which turns anyone who touches a cat into a cat has spread into a worldwide nyandemic. Cats rub against people, turning them into cats. Can humanity fight their urge to pet cats to survive in this cat-ridden world? The momentously catful comic is getting a TV anime in 2025!”

Takashi Miike explains to Deadline, “It’s terrifying, but the Nyandemic can no longer be stopped. The time has come for humanity to dedicate both body and soul to cats.

A new trailer for the Nyaight of the Living Cat anime made its world premiere during Ccxp today, bringing news about the main staff alongside the release. Film director Takashi Miike serves as executive director, with Tomohiro Kamitani ( Mix Meisei Story Season 2 ) directing at anime studio Olm. Koji Endo provides the music, Marty Friedman is on guitar and Heidi Shepherd of Butcher Babies is credited with the "Death Voice." The nyandemic is coming in 2025 — with Crunchyroll to stream in North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East and Cis — and you can see the latest preview below. Nyaight of the Living Cat Trailer The original Nyaight of the Living Cat manga written by Hawkman and illustrated by Mecha-Roots is serialized in Monthly Comic Garden since October 2020 with five volumes currently released in Japan. Seven Seas Entertainment releases the English edition of the manga . Crunchyroll describes...

Exclusive: The series adaptation of Nyaight of the Living Cat will be led by executive director Takashi Miike, who has helmed titles like Audition, Ichi the Killer and 13 Assassins.

Adapted from the original manga written by Hawkman and illustrated by Mecha-Roots, the Nyaight of the Living Cat anime is set to premiere in 2025 on Crunchyroll. Sony Pictures Entertainment will handle distribution in Asia and Japan.

The series will be produced by Olm, the studio behind the Pokémon media franchise.

Nyaight of the Living Cat will be directed by Tomohiro Kamitani (Beyond the Sky) and written by Shingo Irie (Afterlost: Where I End and You Begin), with character designs by Takao Maki (Basilisk: The Ouka Ninja Scrolls).

Nyaight of the Living Cat tells the story of a mysterious virus that turns humans who touch felines into cats, causing a “Nyandemic” to break out all over the world.

Music...

We have been following Kenichi Ugana‘s career for some years now, with the Japanese having managed a rather impressive feat, by appearing in a number of festivals around the world through the years, despite the fact that his style is distinctly Japanese, and is not involved particularly in co-productions. The rather quirky “The Gesuidouz” is another testament to the fact, as it premiered in Toronto and is now having an extensive festival run.

The Gesuidouz is screening at Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival

Hanako has a dream: her horror-themed punk band The Gesuidouz will perform at Glastonbury Festival. Furthermore, she is utterly convinced that she will die at 27, just like her heroes Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain, and being 26, she is quite intent on making her dream come true the year the story starts. Their manager Takamura, however, has nothing but negative comments about the whole group, which includes guitarist Masao,...

Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) was more than just a horror film; it was a cinematic primal scream that reverberated across post-Vietnam America’s culture. Hooper’s film, released amid a decade when mid-century America’s glossy optimism had given way to disillusionment, depicted a world that felt literally slaughtered.

A new kind of horror was born due to the movie’s dirty atmosphere and unrelenting tension; it didn’t rely on supernatural specters or gothic castles but rather on the terrifyingly banal. Its villains were not Dracula or Frankenstein’s monster, but rather a family of blue-collar sadists who lived in the decaying carcass of the American Dream. Fifty years later, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is still a genre-defining classic and a frightening reminder of the cultural decay it depicts.

It’s appropriate, then, that Alexandre O. Philippe’s Chain Reactions (2024) isn’t concerned with...

Mubi has unveiled next month’s streaming lineup, and it’s a major lineup for new releases, including Mati Diop’s Golden Bear-winning Dahomey (alongside more from the director), Andrea Arnold’s Bird, and Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker. Also in the lineup is the new restoration of Robert Frank and Rudy Wurlitzer’s Candy Mountain, along with films from Steven Soderbergh, Alex Ross Pery, Takashi Miike, and more.

Leonardo Goi said in his Berlinale review of Dahomey, “Dahomey begins where Statues Also Die ended, wondering what remains of our identities when the things those cling onto suddenly disappear––then resurface from oblivion. To this, Diop offers no clear answers. But in the heart-shaking passion of that university debate, in those students’ resolute commitment to reappropriate their own narratives, she finds something rarer still: a snapshot of a generation for whom this isn’t just the story of a restitution.

An influence on the likes of Takashi Miike and Yoshiaki Kawajiri, director Hideo Gosha has often gone overlooked in the pantheon of Japanese directors, despite his samurai features Sword of the Beast and Three Outlaw Samurai getting the Criterion treatment. Now is a great time to discover his filmography as his 1966 crime drama Cash Calls Hell has been restored and is arriving at the end of the month. Led by legendary actor Tatsuya Nakadai, we’re pleased to exclusively premiere the new trailer ahead of Film Movement’s digital release beginning November 29.

Here’s the synopsis: “Facing the final days of his prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter, Oida (Tatsuya Nakadai) dreads reentering society as a ruined man with no future prospects. Sensing his street smarts, Oida’s cellmate promises him a pile of loot if he tracks down and kills three men whose names are on a list. Reluctantly accepting the task,...

“Adrift in Tokyo” is the sixth feature by Japanese writer and director Satoshi Miki, whose reputation in his home country is based on his work in television, which is much infused with his particular brand of humor. While his films, unlike the work of colleagues like Takashi Miike or Takeshi Kitano, have largely remained unknown to many Western audiences, thanks to the attentiveness of companies such as the UK-based Third Window Films at least some of them can now be enjoyed in decent DVD releases. One of them is “Adrift in Tokyo”, a feature praised by critics and audiences as it was screened in various international festivals.

Adrift in Tokyo is screening at Five Flavours

Looking at the director, one might be excused to mistake him for one of his protagonists. With his goatee, slacker-like clothes and a floppy heat, Satoshi looks a bit like the Asian version of Johnny Depp...

Khui-Taweewar Wantha’s Thai supernatural horrorDeath Whisperer 2 has scared up $22m (739m baht) to become the second biggest local release of all time.

It has also been sold widely around the world by Bangkok-based sales and production company M Studio, which is currently at AFM promoting new horror titles Ghost Board and Kogaloak Village.

Following its release on October 10, Death Whisperer 2 has smashed a stringof local box-office records – highest advance ticket sales of all time for a Thai film; highest opening day revenue for a Thai film, surpassing $2.4m (80m baht); and fastest Thai film to surpass the 100m baht ($3m) benchmark,...

After crafting the best film of 2023 with The Beast, Bertrand Bonello is prepping his next feature. While he was tight-lipped on details, he tells Variety, “It’s a little early to talk about it. It’s going to be very different. It’s going to be completely different. The writing is finished, and we’re going to start the casting process. I’m going to announce it once the casting is done. I hope to start shooting next September.” Speaking about how cinema is changing, he added, “This mutation is freaky and fascinating. If you don’t involve it in your creation, you’re out. It’s always an equilibrium. You must protect the past and welcome the future. If you just welcome the future, you’re lost in the movement. If you protect the past, you’re out now.”

The ever-prolific Takashi Miike has unveiled his next film, Sham,...

Toei is on board for a new feature film by Japanese provocateur Takashi Miike and is introducing the film to buyers at this week’s AFM. The film, titled Sham, is the director’s first feature based on a work of investigative journalism.

The screenplay is based on a 2007 book by journalist Masumi Fukuda called Fabrication: The Truth About The ‘Murder Teacher’ in Fukuoka. The book details a court case against a teacher who was alleged to have bullied a student to the point of suicide until it came out at trial that the allegations were fabricated – but not before becoming a media sensation.

Boxing seems to be a compelling topic in Japan lately, as another filmmaker, after Takashi Miike with “First Love” (2019) or Sho Miyake with “Small, Slow But Steady” (2022), decided to use it as a background to tell a story. Naoto Kawashima is a film director, writer, and actor, whose feature debut, “Takasaki Graffiti”, premiered in Japan in 2018. However, his second film, “Welcome Back”, was presented to a broader audience, as it was nominated for the Competition 1-2 Award at the 40th Warsaw International Film Festival.

Teru (Kaito Yoshimura) and Ben (Yugo Mikawa) grew up together and consider themselves brothers. Teru is a boxer with the chance to win the rookie of the year title, while Ben is his biggest fan. In the decisive match, Teru loses to Kitazawa (Yoshinori Miyata), which results in his retirement from boxing. Ben, unable to accept it, picks up Teru’s gloves and heads to Osaka to fight Kitazawa.

Filmmakers with works selected for the Tokyo Film Festival’s Nippon Cinema Now section took part in a panel alongside Christian Jeune, Cannes’ film department director and deputy general delegate.

“I’ve been coming to Japan for the past 45 years and know the directors that have been to Cannes well, like Hirokazu Kore-eda and Takashi Miike,” said Jeune. “But six to seven years back, I was a bit desperate for new voices.

“I had heard that many directors had trouble financing their films, or their film treatments were very local and difficult to travel for an international audience. However, now we are seeing a new generation of filmmakers, like those behind Plan 75 or Happyend. I wouldn’t say that it’s a wave yet, but there’s something exciting happening,” added Jeune.

The panel was moderated by the Tokyo fest’s programming director Shozo Ichiyama.

Two filmmakers on the...

Takashi Miike is a prolific Japanese filmmaker with over 100 films and television production credits. Now in his 60s, he is still making movies just as vibrant and outlandish as ever, often filled with grotesque violence. In 2017, he made the feature-length adaptation of Hiroaki Samura’s popular manga series, “Blade of the Immortal” (Original title: Mugen no jûninc). Miike’s samurai action film follows the immortal samurai Manji, who decides to help orphaned Rin Asano seek revenge against those who brutally killed her parents. Takuya Kimura stars in the central role of Manji whereas Hana Sugisaki plays vengeful Rin Asano. The film is available to stream on Netflix in select countries.

Spoilers Ahead

Blade of the Immortal (2017) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

Takashi Miike’s “Blade of the Immortal” follows immortal fighter Manji helping Rin Asano seek vengeance for the sudden, unfortunate death of her parents. It’s a Samurai action thriller...

Ramping up the glitz and glamour from last year’s launch shindig, The Hollywood Reporter Japan turned on the style once more for its Trailblazer Award Gala Party, held Wednesday night at The Peninsula Hotel in Tokyo’s Ginza district.

Held during the Tokyo International Film Festival, this year’s THR Japan gala event was an even hotter ticket than in 2023, with a veritable who’s who of Japan’s film industry, as well as sprinkling of sports legends and local celebs, who all graced the red carpet to join the celebrations to honor Shogun star Tadanobu Asano, the first Japanese recipient of THR’s Trailblazer Award.

The Trailblazer Award is given to artists whose work and careers illuminate stories and characters who have been traditionally marginalized in Hollywood. Since his debut on Japanese television as a 16-year-old, Asano’s career has taken him from Hirokazu Koreeda’s Maborosi to...

Samurai stories, an essential genre of Japan’s film industry since its inception, have been enjoying a global resurgence lately.

FX and Disney’s smash-hit period series Shogun, produced by and starring veteran Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, became the most honored drama in Emmys history last month, winning in more categories in a single year than any show in TV history. The series, a painterly period drama about the struggle for power at the dawn of Japan’s Edo period, also became Disney+ and Hulu’s globally most-watched show ever.

Despite Shogun‘s phenomenal success, however, fans — and Disney’s content execs — will have to wait quite a while for more. Shogun has been renewed for two additional seasons, but the first season was based on James Clavell’s best-selling novel from 1975, and the show’s story arc concluded right where the author’s book ends. FX and Shogun‘s...

A decades-old unproduced screenplay set during Japan’s 1868-’69 civil war has been dusted off and given thoroughly modern action-movie treatment in Kazuya Shiraishi’s “11 Rebels.” A highly entertaining and highly blood-drenched take on the trusty old tale of crooks and miscreants embarking on a military suicide mission on the promise of being pardoned should they happen to survive, “11 Rebels” has just the right balance of spectacular swordplay, revenge-fueled drama and double-crossing political intrigue.

After opening the Tokyo Film Festival, Shiraishi’s lusty samurai slash-’em-up will march into Japanese cinemas on Nov. 1. A slightly different version of the film has been acquired for North America by specialty distributor Well Go USA. Fans of FX’s smash-hit “Shogun” series should find plenty to like about this handsomely produced tale set in the dying days of feudal Japan. In the broader scope of samurai cinema, it combines the chamber...

We have been getting a lot of prequels in recent years. Some have turned out well, like Furiosa, Orphan: First Kill, Prey, and Pearl. Sometimes they don’t turn out very well, like Leatherface, and sometimes they can be quite divisive, like Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Good or bad, prequels are here to stay, so we have put together a list of Horror Prequels We Want to See.

Alien Lv-426

Set between the events of Alien and Aliens, this film would explore the lives of the colonists sent to terraform Lv-426. The movie could showcase their daily lives, paying homage to the brief glimpse of their existence seen in Aliens. Then Weyland-Yutani makes the call with the order to investigate the co-ordinates provided by Ripley, the location of the derelict Engineer spacecraft. As we know from Aliens, the investigation goes terribly wrong – and this movie could show exactly how things...

In Cult Of Criterion, The A.V. Club highlights a new release from The Criterion Collection each month, examining the films entering an increasingly accessible film canon.

A Halloween watchlist doesn’t need to be a bloody romp slicing through a polycule of horny teenagers, nor does it need to be...

There’s a recurring trend in the gaming industry where developers and studios rush to announce a live action adaptation only for it to never materialize. Look no further than Netflix’s fumbling of its Horizon Zero Dawn adaptation, a fan-favorite franchise whose streaming debut was announced and subsequently halted after two years in limbo.

More often than not, it’s smarter for creators to keep mum until their projects are nearly done and ready for social media show-and-tell. This is how Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoko Studio shocked fans...

It’s incredibly human to want to be seen and accepted, warts and all. It’s a deeply vulnerable experience and territory that can be ripe for horror as characters reach troubling breaking points in order to become popular and stop feeling like an outcast. People will do whatever it takes to fit in, even if that means losing themselves in the process. It’s perhaps quite fitting that Grafted, the debut feature film from New Zealand filmmaker Sasha Rainbow, has come out during the same time as Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, a movie that’s about altering one’s appearance to be accepted. Grafted is the perfect companion piece and counterpoint. They both explore similar themes and fragile characters, but go about this in entirely different ways.

Grafted comes across as the stitched together synthesis of Eyes Without A Face, Single White Female, and Re-Animator. There are also...

“Yes, we know murder is bad.”

On October 13th, 2023, The Lady Killers Podcast released its first episode to an unsuspecting public, sparking conversation about female characters we love to hate. Co-hosts Jenn Adams, Sammie Kuykendall, Rocco Thompson, and Mae Shults gathered around microphones to discuss one of our favorite female killers, Pamela Voorhees, the murderous mother who kicks off one of horror’s most beloved franchises . Our goal was to explore the cinematic landscape of lady killers and the horrific world of feminine rage. Why do we find female villains so taboo? How do they thrive in a world dominated by men? What makes us love these glamorous bad girls and why would we die for them even though, yes, we know murder is bad?

Over the past year, Sammie, Mae, Rocco, and I have celebrated and saluted some of the genre’s most beguiling characters, from Carrie White, Amy Dunne,...

Spoopy Season is upon us, dear readers, and any cineaste worth their weight in bone matter is likely scouring the world's many streaming services looking for the best fright flicks available. Most casual horror fans may be content to idly re-watch well-trodden classics like "Halloween," while more enterprising gorehounds will be studiously studying the carefully curated films on Shudder. The jaded, more experienced fright fans, however, will require stronger coffee to get their fear fix, and those brave souls may dive face-first into the overstuffed trough of Night Flight or Eternal Family, looking for oddities that the average soul cannot stand. Are you going to watch a gentle film like "Hocus Pocus" this October, or are you the type to try out "Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder in Hell?"

We can say for sure that actor Kevin Bacon, a great actor with impeccable taste, is an aficionado of the genre and likes...

What do Karyn Kusama, Stephen King, Patton Oswalt, and Takashi Miike have in common? They all speak of their experiences on a certain film that influenced them in one way or another in Alexandre O. Philippe’s latest documentary, Chain Reactions. And of course, the influential film in question is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Tobe Hooper’s grim masterpiece exploded into American cinemas 50 years ago, and its grip on genre-loving viewers and filmmakers hasn’t lessened. Or maybe I should say that the roar of the titular chainsaw hasn’t gotten any less quiet. I was at the 44th Hawaii International Film Festival last week, and not only did I see the restored 4K screening of Texas Chain Saw, but...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Something that comes up almost as an aside in this handsomely mounted period piece, co-written and produced by Korean auteur Park Chan-wook, is the astonishing detail that, in the 16th century, invading Japanese soldiers would saw off their victims’ noses as trophies of war. So prolific were these ad hoc amputations that there’s a shrine of sorts in Japan — the Mimizuka monument in Kyoto, Tokyo — that holds the noses of nearly 40,000 Koreans killed during that time, not to mention some 30,000 similar “souvenirs” from China.

But, surprisingly, Kim Sang-man’s drama doesn’t play that card. This isn’t a story of Korea falling victim to outside aggressors, although that is a significant part of the drama. Instead, it’s a film about the enemy within, something the Koreans would know quite a lot about — most recently with corrupt president Park Geun-hye, whose secret 60-page document blacklisting Park and...

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi will receive an honorary award at the Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) this year.

The 35th edition of Sgiff will organize a special tribute and hold a dialogue session with Panahi, who will receive the festival’s highest honor, the Cinema Honorary Award. This also marks the first time that Panahi is attending Sgiff in-person after the lifting of his 14-year travel ban. Panahi’s films like The Circle, This Is Not A Film and Crimson Gold will be screened at the festival.

The festival’s Cinema Honorary Award was introduced in 2014 and has recognized filmmakers like Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan, Indonesia’s Garin Nugroho, Cambodia’s Rithy Panh, and Japan’s Takashi Miike.

“It’s an incredible honor to be selected as the recipient of the Cinema Honorary Award by Sgiff,” Panahi said. “Since my visit to the festival in 1998 with my film, The Mirror,...

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If you are a horror fan then there is a big chance that you might have heard about the horror streaming service Shudder, and if you have its subscription you might be wondering what’s in store for you in October 2024. Don’t worry there is a host of new and old horror movies coming to the service in the upcoming month and we have listed the 13 best movies coming to Shudder in October 2024.

Hush (October 1)

Hush is a slasher horror thriller film directed by Mike Flanagan who also co-wrote the film with Kate Siegel. The 2016 film follows the story of a dead writer living in a remote house in the woods but when a masked killer appears in the window she must fight for her survival. Hush stars Kate Siegel in the lead role with John Gallagher Jr.,...

Tadanobu Asano is set to receive The Hollywood Reporter’s Trailblazer Award at the upcoming 37th installment of the Tokyo International Film Festival next month.

The chameleonic screen actor has been a mainstay of Japanese cinema for nearly three decades while regularly appearing in prominent supporting parts in big Hollywood productions. But his swaggering recent performance as the irascible samurai Yabushige on FX‘s smash-hit series Shogun has given him an all-new level of global recognition over the past year. In the process of becoming an indelible fan favorite, Asano also received his first Emmy nomination for the part.

THR’s Trailblazer Award, whose recent honorees include six-time Emmy winner Jean Smart, David Oyelowo, Eva Longoria, Matt Bomer, Niecy Nash-Betts and America Ferrera, is given to artists whose work and careers illuminate stories and characters who have been traditionally marginalized in Hollywood. International editor Abid Rahman will present Asano with the award on Oct.

Regardless of their artistic merit, it’s understandable that it can sometimes be difficult for mainstream cinephiles to connect with movies about twisted bodies and grisly mutations. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that these films are any less deserving of praise – it’s just that not every critic has a strong stomach. That’s why it’s so satisfying to see a production like Coralie Fargeat’s satirical body horror flick The Substance get the recognition it deserves in spite of its disturbing mean streak.

And in honor of this Demi Moore / Margaret Qualley experiment wowing highbrow audiences worldwide, we’ve decided to come up with a list recommending six other arthouse body horror flicks for your viewing pleasure! After all, there’s no reason that fine cinema should be devoid of blood and malformed guts.

For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining “arthouse” as any film...

2024 is marking a lot of horror anniversaries, and one of the most notable ones is the 50 year birthday of Toby Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Arguably one of the greatest and most impactful horror films ever made, it has withstood the test of time and remains a terrifying film that has stuck with fans for decades. What Hooper did with a great idea and a limited budget was initially dismissed by many, only to be evaluated again and again and has firmly cemented itself in film history as a masterpiece. In his latest doc, filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe seeks to take a deep dive into this film and its impact through the eyes of some of its biggest fans.

Philippe is an amazing filmmaker who consistently dives into the world of cinema in a way that is critical and thought-provoking. Much like in his 2022 film Lynch/Oz, he incorporates...

Every once in a while, a movie comes around that’s so viscerally different from what came before it that the fabric of cinema is permanently altered. To say that future filmmakers were “influenced” by it almost feels like an understatement, as its legacy has less to do with inspiring specific aesthetic innovations than reconceptualizing the way we think about moving images.

It’s somewhat ironic that a movie titled “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” went on to become such a film. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 slasher masterpiece embraced its lowbrow status with its matter-of-fact title and unapologetic gore, likely seen by many as a cheap attempt to ride shock value into a quick box office gold mine. But as any horror lover will be quick to tell you, that could not be further from the truth. While the film still holds up as a fantastic standalone slasher flick — this writer would...

The Tokyo Gap-Financing Market (Tgfm) has revealed the 20 projects selected for financing and development at Tiffcom, the content market of Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF).

The 5th edition of Tgfm is set to take place from October 30 to November 1 and includes five more projects than last year due to a special focus on Italy. This follows the signing of a co-production agreement between Italy and Japan in 2023, which came into effect last month.

Scroll down for full list of titles

Several international projects hail from successful producers who have teamed with young directors.

They include family drama 9 Temples To Heaven,...

The Criterion Channel’s at its best when October rolls around, consistently engaging in the strongest horror line-ups of any streamer. 2024 will bring more than a few iterations of their spooky programming: “Horror F/X” highlights the best effects-based scares through the likes of Romero, Cronenberg, Lynch, Tobe Hooper, James Whale; “Witches” does what it says on the tin (and inside the tin is the underrated Italian anthology film featuring Clint Eastwood cuckolded by Batman); “Japanese Horror” runs the gamut of classics; a Stephen King series puts John Carpenter and The Lawnmower Man on equal playing ground; October’s Criterion Editions are Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Hunter, Häxan; a made-for-tv duo includes Carpenter’s underrated Someone’s Watching Me!; meanwhile, The Wailing and The Babadook stream alongside a collection of Cronenberg and Stephanie Rothman titles.

Otherwise, Winona Ryder and Raúl Juliá are given retrospectives, as are filmmakers Arthur J. Bressan Jr. and Lionel Rogosin.

Alexandra O. Philippe’s Chain Reactions is an extraordinary documentary about an extraordinary film. With contributions from comedian Patton Oswalt, writers Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Stephen King, plus filmmakers Takashi Miike and Karyn Kusama, it examines the legacy of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 shocker The Texas Chain Saw Massacre through a series of very personal and revealing interviews. Written by Hooper and Kim Henkel, two Texas students, the original film finds five teenagers coming unstuck when a road trip takes them to the Sawyer house, the bone-strewn home to chainsaw-wielding maniac Leatherface (so named for horrifically obvious reasons) and his inbred cannibal family.

Philippe’s thoughtful, reflexive style has developed a lot since his breakout film The People vs. George Lucas (2010), a meditation on Star Wars fandom. In 2017 he released 78/52, an intensive study of the shower scene in Psycho, which he followed in 2019 with Memory: The Origins of Alien, a deep...

Georgian producer Tekla Machavariani, in Locarno this week for the world premiere of director Tato Kotetishvili’s “Holy Electricity,” which plays in the Swiss fest’s Filmmakers of the Present section, has unveiled a slate of new features at her Tbilisi-based production company Nushi Film.

Among them is the first Georgian-Japanese co-production, a film inspired by the brutal Georgian Civil War of the early-1990s, and a movie set among the hip-hop generation of the 2000s in the crime-filled streets of Tbilisi.

“When I founded the company, my main goal was to work with my friends who were inspiring me. They taught me cinema,” said Machavariani, who launched Nushi Film in 2015. “For me, the most important thing is to make Georgian films with directors with whom I grow. We start with short films and then, slowly, we go through the journey together.”

“The Dog is Barking” is the ambitious feature...

All the way back in 2006, Dibakar Banerjee educated the masses about the practice of land scams through Khosla ka Ghosla. It was a rather simple story where a middle-class man bought a plot of land and then found out that it had been forcefully taken from him by a corrupt businessman, thereby forcing this middle-class man to shell out more money to buy back the land that he had purchased in the first place. Although the movie had a comedic tone, it exposed the unlawful activities happening in the country’s capital and how they were being facilitated by the corrupt authorities. And while the topic was rarely addressed on the big screen after that, in real life, land scams increased exponentially. Now, it has been so normalized that the government can just deem the land you’re living on to be illegal, throw you out, hand it over to a huge real estate company,...

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Season 1 of “The Acolyte.”]

“The Acolyte” creator and director Leslye Headland loves a binge watch. The accessibility and volume of television out there in the streaming galaxy is such that not only is it possible to wait for a handful of episodes, but honestly seems preferable to her. You’ve got to sort out if a show will appeal to you, if you’re watching it with friends or a partner, and if so, are you doing that together or asynchronously? It’s a much easier call to make with three or four episodes at a time than just a pilot, invariably an exercise in worldbuilding.

“The last thing I think I really enjoyed watching weekly was ‘Breaking Bad,’ which I know is like a decade ago now,” Headland told IndieWire on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “Or ‘Lost’ or like ‘The Sopranos.’ But those were constructed by these guys who knew that old model backwards and forwards,...

HollyShorts Film Festival is returning for its 20th edition with a star-studded lineup.

400 films have been selected from over 6,000 entries with films from Zoe Saldana, Bella Thorne and Jamie Lee Curtis making the final cut.

HollyShorts includes four Oscar-qualifying categories, including documentary short film, best short film grand prize, best short animation and best short live-action.

The live-action short film entries include “How Can I Help You” directed by Eliza Scanlen and starring Thomasin McKenzie, Marco Perego’s “Dovecote” with Zoe Saldana, “Dammi” starring Riz Ahmed and Isabelle Adjani, Ken Cheng’s “Summons” starring Jimmy O. Yang and Alexandra Shipp, “Midnight” from legendary Japanese director Takashi Miike, Louisa Connolly-Burnham’s “Sister Wives” featuring Mia McKenna-Bruce, “Hearts of Stone” with Noomi Rapace and Jessica Barden, “French” directed by Dylan Joseph, produced by Shira Nagan and exec produced by Kobi Mizrahi, “Vlog” starring and directed by Yvonne Strahovski, “Edge of Space” directed by Jean de Meuron,...

Kevin Bacon is no stranger to the horror genre, having starred in hits like the original Friday the 13th, Tremors, Flatliners, and most recently, MaXXXine, the upcoming third film in Ti West's X trilogy. He counts himself as a fan of the genre and recently revealed to Film Updates that one of his favorite horror movies is the cult Japanese film Audition from director Takashi Miike, based on Ryu Murakami's 1997 novel of the same name.

Chatting with the outlet about the iconic film, Bacon revealed that he's always wanted to do an English-language version of the movie.

I really tried for a lot of years to to do an American version of it. We never really got it together. It was difficult for a lot of reasons. I was close [to making it] but we didn’t get it all the way. But that is a great movie. It would scare the shit out of [Debicki], who,...

Exclusive: Webtoon Entertainment CEO Junkoo Kim has said listing on Nasdaq will bolster efforts to adapt the company’s IPs into different formats and increase opportunities to collaborate with global partners.

The company closed its first trading day at $23, marking a 9.5% increase from its IPO price of $21, with the company’s market capitalization hovering around $2.9B. In an exclusive interview with Deadline, its bosses revealed how the new cash would help drive growth in the U.S. and provided color around the company’s revenue share model with the wealth of creators on the platform.

“We are dominant in Korea, have a strong foothold in Japan, and we are in the earliest stage of a massive market opportunity in North America,” said Yongsoo Kim, the company’s Chief Strategy Officer. “Listing in the U.S. will help accelerate our growth in this market, helping us to get more users and more opportunities with U.

Quentin Tarantino is arguably one of the best auteur directors who brings a distinct style to his films that is enjoyed by fans. With great films like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Django Unchained, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the filmmaker has always maintained his integrity as a director who goes for original material.

Quentin Tarantino’s filmography includes classic gems like Pulp Fiction | Miramax Films

Tarantino has never done a big-budget studio film or dealt with an existing IP. He has talked about how these types of films are taking up most of the theatrical markets while original films are struggling to find audiences. In 2022, the filmmaker bashed the current era of Hollywood deeming it as the worst one since the 50s and 80s.

Quentin Tarantino Believes Hollywood Is Going Through Its Worst Era And Fans Couldn’t Agree More

Tarantino wants studios making more original films than...