Your Name (2016)
In Makoto Shinkai’s haunting Japanese anime, two teenagers swap bodies and lives.
Read MoreJapan
Festival Review: An (2015)
★★★☆☆
With cherry blossom, sweet red bean paste and lovable pensioners, Naomi Kawase’s An is a light, soft-centred Japanese fancy.
Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (2014)
★★★★☆
With a delicate, mesmerising performance from Rinko Kikuchi, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter is a darkly comic tale of misadventure – tragic, odd and uplifting.
Festival Review: Chasuke’s Journey (2015)
★★★☆☆
Despite a promising concept of heavenly screenwriters, Sabu’s Chasuke’s Journey ends in an occasionally visually arresting but hare-brained disappointment.
Like Father, Like Son (2013)
★★★☆☆
A meditation on the ties that bind, Hirokazu Koreeda’s Like Father Like Son is a delicately Japanese exploration of fatherhood, blood and ambition.
Like Someone In Love (2012)
★★★☆☆
An ethereal wander through Japanese relationships, Abbas Kiarostami’s Like Someone In Love reveals the clumsy confusion of human communication.
Post Tenebras Lux (2012)
★★★☆☆
A semi-autobiographic patchwork of family, sex and violence, Carlos Reygadas’s Post Tenebras Lux casts a distorted view over his own past, present and future.
Jiro Dreams Of Sushi (2011)
★★★★☆
Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a beguiling and beautifully crafted documentary focusing on the life of Japanese sushi chef Jiro Ono.
Norwegian Wood (2010)
★★★★☆
A stunningly cinematic adaptation of Murakami’s novel, Tran Anh Hung’s Norwegian Wood may be a cheerless picture of teen love, sex and death, but it is colourful.
Kakera – A Piece Of Our Life (2009)
★★☆☆☆
Jellied in postpubescent malaise, Momoko Ando’s debut feature Kakera is a lesbian love story with a dusting of fantasy sprinkles. But is it all sweet nothings?