News — Japanese film

Film Review: Demon City 鬼城殺 鬼ゴロシ (2025) - Japan Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia) I rated it 8/10 Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com There is a moment in Demon City when the camera lingers on Tōma Ikuta’s face—blood-streaked, eyes burning with a fury that has simmered for twelve long years—and you feel the weight of every ghost that haunts him. This is not mere vengeance porn, though the film delivers carnage with visceral relish....

Film Review: HAPPYEND (青春末世物語) (2025) - Japan / USA Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia) I rated it 7/10 Rating: ★ ★ ★ 1/2 Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com A Dystopian Whisper That Needed to Shout Neo Sora’s debut feature, “HAPPYEND”, arrives on screen like a beautifully composed sigh. It’s a film steeped in atmosphere, drenched in the specific melancholy of a near-future Tokyo humming with seismic dread and the insidious creep of technological control. It promises the friction of...

Film Review: Rental Family 日租家庭 (2025) - US / Japan Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia) I rated it 8/10 Rating: ★★★★ Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com The peculiar magic of cinema often lies in its ability to make the specific universal, and the bizarre profoundly relatable. Japanese Hikari, the director who dissected simmering rage in "Beef," now turns her perceptive gaze towards a quieter, yet no less potent, form of human yearning in “Rental Family." This is not the...

Film Review: Black Box Diaries 黑箱日誌 (2024) - Japan / USA / UK Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia) I rated it 8/10 Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com A Harrowing Thriller Written in Blood and Courage - Shiori Itō does not merely tell her story in “Black Box Diaries”, she forces you to live it, breath by ragged breath, in the suffocating darkness of a system designed to silence her. This isn't just a documentary; it's a first-person procedural thriller...

Review: Shoplifters 万引き家族 (2018) - Japan Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critics Circle of Australia)  Help us continue to cover more Asian and Martial Art films by making a donation to Neo Film Blog below. Director Hitokazu Koreeda (“After the Storm”) continues his trend of portraying dysfunctional families with “Shoplifters”. One of the most beautiful aspect of this film is how the story is told without manipulation of emotions, but simply presenting the events as it unfolds in a slow yet dedicated pace. We see a family of sorts being on display, struggling to live in the commercial driven Tokyo as different family...