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James Hadfield

James Hadfield's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at Tomatometer-approved publication(s).
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Movies TV Shows
Love on Trial (2025) 3/5 EDIT ““Love on Trial” takes over an hour to reach the courtroom, which also gives the director ample time to demonstrate that he isn’t out to demonize. ” – Japan Times Jan 22, 2026 Full Review Vicissitude (2024) 3/5 EDIT “Working with actors who clearly know their way around a ball field, Ijichi (a former high school baseball player himself) captures the sport’s rituals and spartan rigors with bracing immediacy.” – Japan Times Jan 17, 2026 Full Review 10DANCE (2025) 2/5 EDIT “Playing more like an extended warm-up routine, “10 Dance” leaves the floor in anticipation of a sequel that it hasn’t earned. As dance movies go, this one doesn’t make it past the qualifiers.” – Japan Times Dec 29, 2025 Full Review The Chatterboxes (2025) 3/5 EDIT ““The Chatterboxes,” Ken Kawai’s scruffy and cynical crowd-pleaser, is a linguistic comedy of errors with some unusual players.” – Japan Times Dec 10, 2025 Full Review Sato and Sato (2025) 3/5 EDIT “There’s enough richness in the human drama for the film to avoid feeling didactic.” – Japan Times Dec 8, 2025 Full Review A Light in the Harbor (2025) 2/5 EDIT “If Fujii had fed the contents of distributor Toei’s archives into ChatGPT, he probably could have come up with something more original. ” – Japan Times Nov 22, 2025 Full Review Flames of a Flower (2025) 3/5 EDIT “Yamamoto is a magnetic lead, his brooding, emotionally restrained performance standing in contrast to some of the more theatrical support turns.” – Japan Times Nov 3, 2025 Full Review Climbing for Life (2025) 2/5 EDIT “Junji Sakamoto’s “Climbing for Life” is a perfectly watchable biopic that mostly avoids corniness, but it can’t resist the gravitational pull of its star, Sayuri Yoshinaga.” – Japan Times Nov 3, 2025 Full Review Hokusai's Daughter (2025) 3/5 EDIT “Omori lingers too long over the minutiae of daily life during these scenes; the remainder of the film has a more telescoped and episodic quality, even as it sounds some deep emotional notes.” – Japan Times Oct 18, 2025 Full Review Transcending Dimensions (2025) 4/5 EDIT “Yes, the movie’s plot is thin, the pacing erratic, and it could have ended on a stronger note. But make no mistake: “Transcending Dimensions” will take you places.” – Japan Times Oct 17, 2025 Full Review Hero's Island (2025) 3/5 EDIT “While the payoff doesn’t justify the three-hour trip it took to get there, the journey itself isn’t without interest.” – Japan Times Oct 6, 2025 Full Review There Was Such a Thing Before (2025) 2/5 EDIT “There’s no doubting Matsui’s sincerity, but this is deeply paranoid stuff.” – Japan Times Sep 23, 2025 Full Review Faking Beethoven (2025) 2/5 EDIT “It left me feeling like the schoolboy in those modern-day segments — stuck in a classroom with a teacher who doesn’t know when to stop. ” – Japan Times Sep 15, 2025 Full Review Happy Life (2024) 3/5 EDIT “By keeping the focus on its young heroine, the film manages to tackle some pressing issues without feeling like an “issues movie.” It feels like real life.” – Japan Times Aug 29, 2025 Full Review Yukikaze (2025) 1/5 EDIT “It makes for a drab and soporific drama, but “Yukikaze” ascends to true awfulness during its epilogue, in which it cycles through a series of possible endings, each more ill-advised than the last.” – Japan Times Aug 19, 2025 Full Review The Army in the Trees (2025) 3/5 EDIT “Tsutsumi is as solid as ever, but the bigger surprise is Yamada, whose career to date has traded more on his looks than his dramatic range.” – Japan Times Aug 1, 2025 Full Review Rainy Blue (2025) 2/5 EDIT “Maybe there’s a version of the film that unites its cinephile fantasies, comic digressions and adolescent yearning into a more cohesive whole. The puckish energy and heartfelt emotions of “Rainy Blue” only get it so far. ” – Japan Times Jul 25, 2025 Full Review New Religion (2022) 89% 2/5 EDIT “ “New Religion” is weird, all right, but it’s wearying, too.” – Japan Times Jul 18, 2025 Full Review Young & Fine (2025) 4/5 EDIT “The musical score, which consists of nothing but the sounds of a school band warming up, sets just the right tone. ” – Japan Times Jul 15, 2025 Full Review Sham (2025) 81% 2/5 EDIT “The problems arise when the film quietly ditches this he-said-she-said format and plants its sympathies squarely with the defendant, without making any effort to reconcile the differences between the two accounts.” – Japan Times Jun 29, 2025 Full Review A Unique Country in Asia (2025) 3/5 EDIT “The film’s messy mingling of sex and politics reaches its climax during an uproarious bedroom sequence that will probably strike Abe fans as sacrilegious, but left this viewer chortling.” – Japan Times Jun 25, 2025 Full Review Strangers in Kyoto (2025) 3/5 EDIT “Madoka’s personal dramas end up eclipsing a more interesting exploration of how traditions endure, and who gets to claim them. Kyoto natives will doubtless find cause for offense, but good luck getting them to admit it.” – Japan Times Jun 6, 2025 Full Review Jinsei (2025) 4/5 EDIT “When the story leaves all familiar reference points behind and hurtles into the future, it sacrifices some of the texture and richness of the earlier chapters. But this one-man indie wonder is a work of true vision.” – Japan Times May 18, 2025 Full Review My Edison (2025) 3/5 EDIT “Director Gaku Kawasaki, who wrote the original play, proves to be a steady set of hands, while there’s enough variety in the locations to make you forget the material’s stage origins.” – Japan Times May 14, 2025 Full Review The Killer Goldfish (2024) 2/5 EDIT “The outlandish concepts and discordant stylistic flourishes never cohere into an entertaining film.” – Japan Times May 9, 2025 Full Review
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