Recent Posts
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Episode #18 – Bloody Chainsaw Girl (血まみれスケバンチェーンソー)
Giko is just your average delinquent schoolgirl who cuts class to smoke, carries a chainsaw, and has an army of trendy poser mutant cyborgs on her trail. Wait…what?! Get ready to enter the world of Japanese grindhouse!
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Episode #17 – Lady Snowblood (修羅雪姫)
Yuki was born with only one purpose—to avenge her mother. After spending her entire life training, she’s now ready to pursue her mission. Dive into the gore-soaked world of the 1973 cult classic, Lady Snowblood!
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Episode #16 – Sakuran (さくらん)
Enjoy a stylistic look at the old Yoshiwara red-light district in Mika Ninagawa’s 2006 film, Sakuran.
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Episode #15 – Rashomon (羅生門)
Akira Kurosawa’s classic adaptation of a story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa is the focus of this episode. You’ve no doubt seen it before. But what you may not know is some of the historical context for the story’s Heian setting and how that compares to postwar Japan.
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Episode #14 – Linda Linda Linda (リンダ リンダ リンダ)
Only three days before their high school festival, guitarist Kei, drummer Kyoko, and bassist Nozomi are forced to recruit a new lead vocalist for their band. They choose Korean exchange student Son, though her comprehension of Japanese is a bit rough! It’s a race against time as the group struggles to learn three tunes for the festival’s rock concert—including a classic '80s punk-pop song by the Japanese group The Blue Hearts called “Linda Linda.”
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Episode #13 – Godzilla (ゴジラ)
Japan On Film is back with a new season! And to celebrate the release of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, dive into the original Godzilla! Far from just being a cheesy B-monster flick, the original Godzilla is actually a very powerful film about the dangers of nuclear weapons.
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Episode #12 – The Magnificent Seven Samurai, Part 3 (七人の侍／荒野の七人)
The final installment of the three-part season finale! Listen to the rest of my conversation with Derrick as we discuss the music in both movies, the legacy they�ve left behind, and talk about the interconnected nature of both westerns and samurai films.
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Episode #11 – The Magnificent Seven Samurai, Part 2 (七人の侍／荒野の七人)
The three-part season finale continues as Derrick and I continue our conversation about Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven, going a bit deeper into some of the things that make both these movies special.
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Episode #10 – The Magnificent Seven Samurai, Part 1 (七人の侍／荒野の七人)
In the first of this three-part season finale, I've invited fellow author and movie reviewer Derrick Ferguson to come on and talk with me about Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic, Seven Samurai, and to compare it with John Sturges' 1960 remake, The Magnificent Seven.
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Episode #9 – Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (子連れ狼：子を貸し腕貸しつかまつる)
In this first film of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, adapted from the manga by Kazuo Koike, we are told the story of the Lone Wolf and Cub's origin. Ogami Itto, the official Shogunate executioner, has been framed for disloyalty to the Shogunate by the Yagyu clan, against whom he now is waging a one-man war, along with his infant son, Daigoro.
