Not too long ago, the Japanese film industry was enclosed in a tight domestic bubble, with local filmmakers mostly making local films for local audiences. Japanese studios appreciated international recognition, but regarded foreign sales as a sort of after-dinner mint – a nice extra, but not essential.
One reason for this “Japan only” mentality was the size of the local market – still the third-largest in the world in terms of box office — which allowed local films at all budget levels to comfortably recoup at home. Another was the long list of missteps and failures by Japanese filmmakers and studios when they ventured abroad or tried to target foreign markets.
The most notorious example was the firing of Kurosawa Akira after two weeks of shooting the 1970 WWII epic “Tora, Tora, Tora.” More recently, one-time uber-producer Sento Takenori lost his production company Rumble Fish in 2008 after his strategy of making art films for...
One reason for this “Japan only” mentality was the size of the local market – still the third-largest in the world in terms of box office — which allowed local films at all budget levels to comfortably recoup at home. Another was the long list of missteps and failures by Japanese filmmakers and studios when they ventured abroad or tried to target foreign markets.
The most notorious example was the firing of Kurosawa Akira after two weeks of shooting the 1970 WWII epic “Tora, Tora, Tora.” More recently, one-time uber-producer Sento Takenori lost his production company Rumble Fish in 2008 after his strategy of making art films for...
- 11/8/2021
- by Mark Schilling
- Variety Film + TV
To The Ends Of The Earth (Tabi no Owari Sekai no Hajimari) Tokyo Theatres Co./ Loaded Films Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Cast: Atsuko Maeda, Tokio Emoto, Ryô Kase, Adiz Rajabov, Shôta Sometani Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 11/18/20 Opens: December 11, […]
The post To The Ends of the Earth Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post To The Ends of the Earth Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 12/6/2020
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
"It was like a dream." KimStim Films has released an official trailer for the US release of the Japanese indie film To the Ends of the Earth, one of the latest works by prolific Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa. This premiered at the fall festivals last year including Locarno, TIFF, and New York, and is opening in select theaters (starting at the Metrograph) this December. A Japanese woman finds her cautious and insular nature tested when she travels to Uzbekistan to shoot the latest episode of her travel variety TV show. It's described as "a brilliant mix of black comedy, travelogue, drama, and adventure-imbued showbiz satire, To the Ends of the Earth—commissioned to mark the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan—chronicles the journey of a young woman from displacement to self-discovery." Starring Atsuko Maeda as Yoko, Shôta Sometani, Tokio Emoto, Adiz Rajabov,...
- 11/16/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
“To the Ends of the Earth” was jointly commissioned by Japan and Uzbekistan to commemorate the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, as well as the 70th anniversary of the Navoi Theater in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which was constructed by Japanese prisoners of war after World War II. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, whose filmography boasts of various genres but is probably most well-known for his earlier J-horror films like “Cure” and “Pulse”, was hired to write and direct the film.
“To the Ends of the Earth” screened at San Diego Asian Film Festival
Yoko is in Uzbekistan as a reporter to shoot a travel documentary about the country for a variety show, but it’s not going as smoothly as her team or she expects. A rare, almost mythical fish apparently native to a lake there which they want to catch and film won’t bite, the rice in...
“To the Ends of the Earth” screened at San Diego Asian Film Festival
Yoko is in Uzbekistan as a reporter to shoot a travel documentary about the country for a variety show, but it’s not going as smoothly as her team or she expects. A rare, almost mythical fish apparently native to a lake there which they want to catch and film won’t bite, the rice in...
- 11/20/2019
- by Rhythm Zaveri
- AsianMoviePulse
“To the Ends of the Earth,” the story of a young Japanese journalist’s experiences in Uzbekistan filming a report for a Japanese TV travel show, was originally commissioned to celebrate 25 years of cordial diplomatic relations between director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s hyper-developed island homeland and the less affluent, landlocked Central Asian nation. As such we might have expected a straightforwardly celebratory, mildly quirky travelogue, but Kurosawa’s discreetly offbeat approach makes it much more rewarding and, in its way, revealing than that: an insightful and ambivalent interrogation of the strange and often compromised experience that is cultural tourism in the mass media age.
A great deal of Kurosawa’s recent output has been disappointingly wan, blending thinly plotted sci-fi or melodrama with stock elements of the J-horror genre he quietly, creepily revolutionized in the late ’90s and early aughts in films like “Pulse” and “Cure.” But in the most surprising...
A great deal of Kurosawa’s recent output has been disappointingly wan, blending thinly plotted sci-fi or melodrama with stock elements of the J-horror genre he quietly, creepily revolutionized in the late ’90s and early aughts in films like “Pulse” and “Cure.” But in the most surprising...
- 10/15/2019
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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