©Courtesy of GKIDS LITTLE AMÉLIE OR THE CHARACTER OF RAIN : The world is a perplexing, peaceful mystery to Amélie until a miraculous encounter with chocolate ignites her wild sense of curiosity. As she develops a deep attachment to her family’s housekeeper, Nishio-san, Amélie discovers the wonders of nature as well as the emotional truths…
©Courtesy of GKIDS Honestly, animation was probably the only way to adapt Amélie Nothomb’s otherwise “unadaptable,” “biographical” novella. Describing the world as she supposedly saw it as a three-year-old toddler, her book-club-friendly The Character of Rain reads something like Look Who’s Talking in the style of Terrence Malick. Regardless, the title rugrat character has a…
©Courtesy of GKIDS 100 Meters : The film follows Togashi, a track star who is born to run. As a kid, he is naturally gifted and wins every 100-meter race without effort. But in sixth grade, he meets Komiya, a transfer student who is full of determination but lacks technique. In teaching him, Togashi gives…
©Courtesy of GKIDS A Danish princess is about to discover “The Undiscovered Country.” That metaphor for the mysteries of the afterlife, taken from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, previously inspired the sixth (and probably best) original Star Trek film. It also could have very easily served as the title for Mamoru Hosoda’s new anime feature. The title character’s…
©Courtesy of GKIDS One of a highly anticipated Kabuki drama “Kokuho,” which stars Ryo Yoshizawa, Ken Watanabe, and Ryusei Yokohama, has been released in Japan and features the first trailer. The second-highest-grossing Japanese live-action movie of all time is “Kokuho,” which has taken more than $104M since its June premiere. At the Japanese box office,…
©Courtesy of GKIDS An isolated scream of personal despair can ultimately become the voice of a generation that’s contending with the nature of their existence. The anguish felt in the reverberating cry of the young heroine in the fantasy anime movie, Angel’s Egg, echoes the crisis of faith many adolescents face as they come of…
Now in its 63rd year, Film at Lincoln Center’s New York Film Festival (aka NYFF) can boast proudly about being one of the longest-running film festivals within the United States and even North America. When it began in 1963, it was looking to Europe, where film festivals like Cannes, Berlin (Berlinale), and Venice (Bienalle) were…
©Courtesy of GKIDS The coming-of-age film ‘Linda Linda Linda’ has been digitally remastered in 4K to mark its 20th anniversary. GKIDS has secured the U.S. release of the film, which was also shown at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. In this column, we asked director Nobuhiro Yamashita, who led the project, to reflect on the…
©Courtesy of GKIDS “Linda Linda” is one of the biggest hits from Japan’s most popular punk bands, the Blue Hearts. Yet, this Japanese high school garage band totally makes it their own, despite their new Korean vocalist’s spotty command of the language. A lot of Americans discovered the real band indirectly through this film when…
©Courtesy of Toei Princess Chao is not exactly the “Little Mermaid,” at least not the one you might recognize. For one thing, she usually presents herself to the outside world as a giant fish. That is just how merpeople look when they are out of the water—unless they feel sufficiently safe to reveal their true…
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