“Ah, the Wasteland” : New Terayama Film
Yang gives a moving performance as the stuttering, socially inept ex-barber with the ring-name of “Barikan” (“Clipper”).
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Japanese Surreality: Yasutaka Tsutsui
Imagine a cross between J.G. Ballard and “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, with elements of Kafka, Saki and magical realism
2050: Japan’s Cultural Footprint
Just as you get the politicians you deserve, you get the works of art you deserve too.
British House / Japanese House: We’re All Rabbits Now
A cross between a medieval hermit and a Parisian flâneur, he has apparently never left Tokyo
James Bond’s Secret Mission: To Revive the Anglo-Japanese Alliance
James Bond’s half-Japanese son or daughter would be in the prime of life today.
The Multi-talented Mr. Aquirax
His blend of Aubrey Beardsley-like eroticism with sixties psychedelia helped to establish the underground ambience…
In Praise of Inauthenticity: Ghost in the Shell
In Japan, which has made cultural appropriation a national strategy for the last 150 years, such thinking makes no sense
North Korean Assassination: The Novel!
“Through the seething jungles of Mindanao, across the baking emptiness of Mongolia and into the Dear Leader’s personal pleasure dome.”
From Endo to Dylan: TV Ads Bridge the Cultural Divide
Ground-breaking film director Nagisa Oshima, peddled cockroach-repellent and air-freshener.
Martin Scorsese’s Searing “Silence”
Scorsese’s favoured milieu is the “mean streets” of inner city America, where he grew up, with their violence, profanity and crime