By John Liu Northwest Asian Weekly Super Mario was jumping around Seattle downtown and yes, Batman was eating at Subway among thousands of interesting and strange characters flooding last weekend.<!–more–> Sakura-Con estimates more than 20,000 people attended this year’s conference on April 18 through April 20 at the Washington State Convention Center. This is the […]
“The Wind Rises”
By Andrew Hamlin Northwest Asian Weekly Master animator and director Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of Studio Ghibli and the man who introduced anime features in America, has declared that “The Wind Rises,” a fictionalized biography of airplane designer Jiro Horikoshi, will be his last film. It is also his first and only film not explicitly directed […]
A-pop! A scrappy end to 2013 — Out with the old, in with the new, and more wins!
By Vivian Nguyen Northwest Asian Weekly Happy New Year, dear readers! 2014 is here, and while I’m all for ushering in the New Year, I want to take a moment to wrap up entertainment news from 2013. Let’s look back into the vestiges of last year before we tackle this year, shall we? Questlove thinks […]
A-pop! Top 10 stories of 2013 — Take one final look at the best, and the best of the worst, of last year’s Asian pop media moments
By Vivian Nguyen Northwest Asian Weekly With the New Year underway, it’s the perfect time to take a moment and reflect on 2013’s biggest hits and misses in pop culture. It’s been an interesting year, which saw Asian Americans breaking ground in new ways in pop media, as well as some spectacularly offensive moments from […]
Two classics make their Blu-ray debuts
By Andrew Hamlin Northwest Asian Weekly “Enter The Dragon” The young man was only 32 when he died. He’d been born in San Francisco and lived in Oakland, Hong Kong, and elsewhere, but his family chose to have him buried in Seattle, where he’d attended school and worked for Ruby Chow as a waiter. His […]
Bright lights and twilight, a film review of “From Up On Poppy Hill”
By Andrew Hamlin NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY Rating: “From Up On Poppy Hill” is the second anime feature from Goro Miyazaki, son of the famed anime master Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghilbi fame. The film proves a substantial improvement over his first feature, “Tales from Earthsea” (a film I actually liked), and a story impressive for […]
“The Secret World Of Arrietty”
By Andrew Hamlin Northwest Asian Weekly Studio Ghibli, founded in 1985 by anime directors Hayao Miyazaki
SIFF celebrates Studio Ghibli in “Castles in the Sky” series
By Andrew Hamlin Northwest Asian Weekly In 1985, Japanese anime directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata joined forces to create a new studio for anime films. The studio’s name, Studio Ghibli, was named after an Arabic word meaning “Mediterranean wind,” with the hope that their works would blow a new wind through the world of […]
The 10 best Asian films of the year
2010 gave us great Asian and Asian-related films from, quite literally, all over the map. Look for the following at your local well-stocked video store:
Goro Miyazaki follows proudly in his father’s footsteps with “Earthsea”
“Tales from Earthsea” is the first feature film directed by Goro Miyazaki, son of master Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. The film had a tough time making it to American screens. First, the father disagreed with the son over the film’s animation techniques. Eventually, they stopped speaking to each other during its production. Then, the film’s USA distribution got held up due to copyright issues …