Tips from Chip

The Wind Rises is purportedly legendary writer/director Hayao Miyazaki’s last film.  There are those people (I am among them) who hope that...

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum, sometimes translated incorrectly as The Story of the Late Chrysanthemum, is a Japanese film originall...

Yojimbo from writer/director Akira Kurosawa has been remade twice – the first time as a spaghetti western starring Clint Eastwood (1964’s A...

Tampopo is a Japanese film that is clearly rooted in the American Western film genre.  It is set in contemporary Japan , but all of the bas...

Tora! Tora! Tora! is a big budget war film made during the height of the Vietnam War.   As you might expect, it did not do well initially ...

The movie Throne of Blood is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth set in feudal Japan .   Its original title is Kumonosu-jo, which literal...

47 Ronin tells the classic Japanese tale of, you guessed it, the 47 ronin.   Just as the tales of King Arthur are known to pretty much every...

What can be said about Akira Kurosawa’s film Seven Samurai that has not already been said before?   I stalled over this review for a few da...

Battle Royale is a Japanese film that has struck a chord around the world.   There has been talk for years of an American remake, but becaus...