tokyo

Tokyo Olympiad

DVD Talk Collector Series Perfectly timed given the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Criterion's stand-alone Blu-ray release of director Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad (Tokyo orinpikku, 1965) is not just the best of the Olympic Games films, but a great film generally. Even if, like this reviewer, you have minimal interest in sports, it's enthralling from beginning to end and, in retrospect, quite moving. The 1964 Summer Olympics marked two sea changes: it symbolized Japan's resurrection from the ashes of the Second World War into a peaceful, first-world nation, but equally significant the Games themselves were the last largely unsullied by politicization…
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Me and the Cult Leader Trailer Documents the 1995 Tokyo Nerve Gas Attack

Director Atsushi Sakahara’s Me and the Cult Leader will make its world premiere as part of Sheffield Doc/Festival’s Digital Edition. The documentary will debut as a Ghosts and Apparitions selection. The Festival runs until July 10. Me and the Cult Leader chronicles a doomsday cult’s attack on Tokyo’s subway system. It was the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the postwar era. Sakahara was one of the victims. He comes to find he has unlikely company. On March 20th, 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo cult executed a coordinated attack on five trains in the Tokyo subway system. The group released a…
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