One of the more problematic aspects of the current state of cinema in Japan is that the movies playing in the theaters are by and large made not by f….

The contemporary Japanese directors who are well-known in the West - say, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takeshi Kitano, Naomi Kawase - are mostly unknown to Japa….

If a movie is nominated for, say, an Academy award, that movie will instantly become popular in Japan. There's always been a bit of a complex the Jap….

But then foreign critics right away made sweeping comparisons to haiku, noh theater, and directors like Ozu, as if the movie were somehow representat….

The biggest considerations I had were practical: how do you move such a large number of actors around a small space? So, for example, if I have to ha….

I did want to become a novelist, but the program at Waseda was pretty intense in terms of language requirements - two hours of English and four hours….

In the neighborhood around Waseda, there were all these movie theaters, so every morning I left the house and watched movies instead of going to clas….

I don't believe in making movies to cater to a foreign audience. You never know what the reaction is going to be anyhow. At the time I made Maborosi,….

In order to avoid sentimentality and to be able to write the screenplay with the kind of humor and irony necessary to keep the story moving, I needed….

As far as documentaries go, I believe unreservedly that they serve an important function in our culture. I'd love to be able to make both documentari….