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“Skin of Youth” is a collaborative production between Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, and the United States. It marks the second feature by director Ash Mayfair, following a hiatus after the controversy surrounding the acclaimed “The Third Wife.” Prior to its Tokyo premiere, the project earned a Special Mention at Talents Tokyo, the Open Sea Fund Award at the Se Asia Fiction Film Lab, and the Sorfond Award at the Busan Asian Film Market.

Skin of Youth is screening at New York Asian Film Festival

Set in Saigon in 1998, the story follows San, a transgender woman who sings at a nightclub and dreams of saving enough money for gender-affirming surgery. Her partner Nam, a devoted boxer, works tirelessly to help her achieve that goal. One night, Mr. Vuong, a powerful underworld fixer, visits the club and becomes mesmerized by San’s captivating performance. Hoping to fund her surgery, San begins meeting with Vuong in secret.

A samurai travels through time and winds up on the set of a samurai TV show in A Samurai in Time.

The Japanese sci-fi comedy will be released August 5 on Fandor and VOD.

At the end of the Edo period in Kyoto, a samurai prepares to fight against an opposing clan member when a flash of lighting hits. He wakes up to find himself transported through time to the present day, and the location where he was about to duel is now a samurai TV show set.

He is mistaken for an extra and immediately thrust into the world of period drama productions. Due to his very ‘authentic’ look and speech, he starts working on many productions and finds himself playing the role of a “kirareyaku,” a swordsman whose job is to die spectacularly on film.

Junichi Yasuda writes and directs. Makiya Yamaguchi, Norimasa Fuke, Yuno Sakura, Rantaro Mine, Ken Shonozaki,...

My Neighbor Totoro is one of Studio Ghibli's most beloved films and with Totoro as Studio Ghibli's mascot character, it's no surprise that it is. What makes My Neighbor Totoro, so great is how it gets down to the root of life and what makes it so beautiful. The simplicity of adapting to a new environment, character growth and mingling back with nature makes the film a breaht of fresh air.

Fortunately for fans of My Neighbor Totoro, there are a bountiful number of anime series and movies out there that carry the same weight and heartwarming feelings that My Neighbor Totoro delivers to every viewer. From action-packed anime movies like The Boy and the Beast to bittersweet anime series like March Comes in like a Lion, fans of My Neighbor Totoro have plenty of wonderful animations to pick and choose from.

Related 10 Best Studio Ghibli Movies for New Anime Fans,...

[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “Tokyo Vice” Season 2, Episode 10, “Endgame.”]

In “Tokyo Vice,” honor is a double-edged katana. On one end sits Ozaki (Bokuzō Masana), the Meicho Shimbun newspaper executive who confesses to Emi (Rinko Kikuchi) that he was the one who destroyed the Yoshino videotape — although “confesses” is too generous a word. Ozaki solves her season-long mystery without batting an eye, before mansplaining his action as if Emi is an idiot. He had to destroy the tape. If the Meicho ran a story about a government official’s involvement in the murder of a hostess, then the paper would be frozen out of government business for years. “And how would that serve our readers?” he asks. So now that Emi has brought him further evidence against prime-minister-in-waiting Jotaro Shigematsu (Hajime Inoue), proving his ties to Yakuza leader Shinzo Tozama (Ayumi Tanida), the dignified thing to do is turn over her documents to the proper parties,...

Spoiler Alert: This interview contains spoilers from the Season 2 premiere of HBO’s “Tokyo Vice,” now streaming on Max.

“Jake is being a very bad boy…”

That’s how Ken Watanabe, who plays detective Hiroto Katagiri, described Jake Adelstein’s (Ansel Elgort) actions at the end of “Tokyo Vice’s” Season 2 premiere. The second season picks off right where Season 1 ended in April 2022 and plugs viewers back into the neon-lit streets of Tokyo’s underbelly.

Loosely based on the memoir written by journalist Jake Adelstein, “Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan,” the show follows Adelstein as he works with detective Katagiri to expose the atrocities committed by the yakuza and dismantle organized crime in the city.

The jaw-dropping Season 2 premiere, which debuted on Max with two episodes, saw Jake, the Japan-based journalist, for lack of a better phrase, “sealing the deal” with Shinzo Tozawa’s (Ayumi Tanida) girlfriend,...