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

In Review Online

The Last Temptation of Becky — Jenn Wexler [Review]

11.04Work

Talk about your unexpected picks for franchise promotion: 2020’s Becky was a modestly-budgeted picture, offering the simple pleasures of a furious adolescent girl dispatching a vicious group of…

Read at In Review Online ↗

One letter a week, starting soon.

Latest

The Last Temptation of Becky — Jenn Wexler [Review]

More from In Review Online on Cinepuuulse

Long Live the Underground! In Review Online

You Can Lose the Forest for the Trees: An Interview with Lance Hammer on Queen at Sea In Review Online

Hen — Pálfi György [Review] In Review Online

zi — Kogonada [Review] In Review Online

Paradise Lost — Yeon Sang-ho [Review] In Review Online

Measured Suspicion & Fervent Faith: Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine In Review Online