Shirô Toyoda has created a truly horrific, haunting masterwork that is Jigokuhen, and indeed like its title, this is a portrait of Hell put to film. Inspired from a short story by Akutagawa Ryûnosuke (Rashômon, the story that Akira Kurosawa’s film of the same name is based on.) …

How does one classify this? Existential horror, maybe. This is one of those films that when they end there’s only silence in your mind, you’ve seen so much, you’ve been thinking and experiencing so much that you’re left in a state of shock trying to piece together a meaning. The director…

While other documentaries fail to hold my attention this 9 hour mammoth kept me captivated the entire runtime. This goes beyond simple “documenting”, it’s more in the realm of anthropology and ethnology. Despite being split into three parts (Rust, Remnants, Rails) it is still one film, it’s still connected and…

The Man Who Stole the Sun is existentialism taken to the next level, it’s an epic journey from start to finish. I can best describe this as a high tension thriller in the vain of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low (1963) mixed with the existentialism of Taxi Driver (1974) and on…

On the surface level this story is quite simple, a Japanese family with two kids, one of the kids is having trouble at school with his low grades and so his parents hire a tutor, and that is indeed what happens here but it’s so much more than that.

As haunting as it is beautiful, Kiyoshi Kurosawa is indeed the modern master of horror, and in this film he proves it but not in the way you’d expect by watching his previous films. …

Often times, in cinema, a director has that one film that overshadows the rest of his works in terms of popularity. Because of this many films go unnoticed and unwatched, even if they’re superior in quality, and this is sadly the case of “Samurai Assassin (1965)”. …

Where do I begin talking about 25 films at a time ? From a technical standpoint these films have always been consistent despite being handled by a number of different directors. Even though there are 25 films there are still some aspects that were carried on from one film to the next…

This film went under my radar for far too long, but I’m glad that I have finally watched it, and what an experience it was! From the very first moments during the opening credits we are presented by a beautiful painting, the film’s visual style is striking but at the same…