Contemporary Japanese Cinema Since Hana-Bi
by Adam Bingham
Average rating:
0 | rating | ![]() |
0 | rating | ![]() |
0 | rating | ![]() |
0 | rating | ![]() |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
Updates the story of Japanese cinema for the 21st century
Yakuza, samurai and horror films have been some of the most popular genres in Japanese cinema over the last two decades, with a clearly defined generic lineage in the country’s cinematic tradition. Studying these genres through a close analysis of their most representative films, this innovative study examines the way individual films have either adapted to or drawn away from their own genre conventions, or, in the case of ‘magic realist’ films, have introduced significant new developments which have little real precedence in Japanese filmmaking. With close textual analysis, this study looks at the prevalence of repetition and variation in these contemporary Japanese genres, offering for the first time in English an academic appreciation and overview of popular Japanese cinema. Looking at the work of directors as varied as Kitano ‘Beat’ Takeshi and Kurosawa Kiyoshi, and films as iconic as Hana-Bi and The Bird People in China, this book provides an invaluable resource for film students and scholars alike.
Key Features
• Considers and analyses numerous films and filmmakers that have yet to feature predominantly in western discourse on Japanese cinema
• first study of the significant developments in Japanese genre filmmaking since the turn of the new millennium
• Analyses in detail the dialogue that can be seen between new Japanese cinema and the significant trends and practices of past generations
• Includes for the first time in western discourse a discussion of the modern state of the Japanese documentary feature, based on interviews with some of its leading practitioners
• Includes a review of Japanese-language criticism and a consideration of how the country’s cinema has been perceived within Japan
About the Author:
Dr. Adam Bingham teaches Film Studies at Edge Hill University and is a regular contributor to publications such as CineAction, Cineaste, Asian Cinema and others.
Press Reviews:
This is a lively and informative survey of recent trends in Japanese cinema that will interest a very wide readership of students and curious cinephiles. Bingham is an engaging and reliable critical cartographer whose mapping of the field is accomplished in an illuminating, adventurous and thoughtful fashion.– Alastair Phillips, University of Warwick
See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press
> From the same author:
> On a related topic:
Film Viewing in Postwar Japan, 1945-1968 (2024)
An Ethnographic Study
Transcendence and Spirituality in Japanese Cinema (2024)
Framing Sacred Spaces
Prostitutes, Hostesses, and Actresses at the Edge of the Japanese Empire (2023)
Fragmenting History
Cinema of Discontent (2023)
Representations of Japan's High-Speed Growth
Japanese Filmmakers in the Wake of Fukushima (2023)
Perspectives on Nuclear Disasters
Japanese High School Films (2023)
Iconography, Nostalgia and Discipline
Making Audiences (2022)
A Social History of Japanese Cinema and Media