Our mark is 銀幕, ginmaku — the silver screen, and the same two characters in Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

I came to Tokyo at twenty-three for a summer job at a Shibuya mini-theatre and the job never quite ended. Fifteen years of festivals later I still think the only review that counts is the one the room gives you: where the laugh lands, the moment three hundred people stop moving at once, whether anybody stays for the credits.

Cinepuuulse follows Asian cinema — Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand — across about a hundred and twenty sources. A good number of them are Spanish, French and Portuguese, because those countries programme this work seriously and write about it better than most of the English-language trade. Genre and art-house get the same seat here. I am not ranking them, and nothing is scored out of ten.

Each story is a headline, a short excerpt, one still and a link to the outlet that did the reporting. We never republish the piece, and the still belongs to its studio or its photographer. A Korean trade paper appears in Korean, a French review in French. We point at the work; we do not put words in anyone's mouth.

— Daren Wise, Tokyo

← Cinepuuulse Archive

The Guardian FilmUK

Elke Sommer obituary

11.05

Glamorous star of 1960s films best known for her role opposite Peter Sellers in A Shot in the Dark Like Ingrid Bergman and Sophia Loren, the German actor Elke Sommer was part of the postwar crossover…

Film Peter Sellers Television Germany

Read at The Guardian Film ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

Elke Sommer obituary

More from The Guardian Film on Cinepuuulse

UK‘George Lucas told me off for wearing lipstick’: Celia Imrie on Traitors, Star Wars and treating the lens like a lover The Guardian Film

UKRaise the Red Lantern review – Gong Li gives a decade-defining performance in an addictively ruthless masterpiece The Guardian Film

UK‘Children were wearing fake life jackets’: one Syrian family’s terrifying, 10-year journey The Guardian Film

UKI Play Rocky review – Anthony Ippolito adds knockout sweetness to the story of Stallone’s Hollywood triumph The Guardian Film

UKJimmy review – simple-minded James Stewart biopic is too straightforward The Guardian Film

UKTinto Brass, director of Caligula and maestro of Euro erotica, dies aged 93 The Guardian Film