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Japan takes great pride in the variety and quality of its cuisine. Every prefecture and municipality has a range of intrinsically local dishes, each deeply connected to the region’s history and land. Reflecting this culinary richness is a growing interest and a flourish of tv dramas centered on people travelling all over the country and discovering forgotten or less-known local delicacies. Interestingly, the protagonists of these docu-fictional (often featuring real eateries) or fictional programs are often businesspeople or salarymen on work trips—perhaps because they’re the ones most removed from the kitchen, and famously in need of a little distraction! From “Kentaro: The Sweet Tooth Salaryman”, to “Samurai Gourmet”, from “What Did You Eat Yesterday?” to “The Way of The Hot and Spicy” and “The Road to Red Restaurants List”, the selection is wide enough to satisfy the big public, however the most beloved and popular of all...

Frankfurt am Main celebrates Japanese cinema with numerous premieres, guests and a cultural program

The countdown has begun! In just a few weeks, Frankfurt am Main will once again become the unofficial capital of Japan. From May 27 to June 1, 2025 the Nippon Connection Film Festival will celebrate its 25th anniversary, presenting a diverse program all about Japan. Founded as a student project, Nippon Connection is now the world’s largest platform for contemporary Japanese cinema, screening around 100 short and feature-length films. The film program is complemented by over 70 cultural events, including artistic to culinary offerings.

This year’s film program once again features films from a wide variety of genres. Whether it be touching dramas such as Mipo O’s Living In Two Worlds, gripping animated films such as Go Koga’s The Birth Of Kitaro: The Mystery Of Ge Ge Ge, or Kazuya Shiraishi’s visually stunning samurai film Bushido,...

Sports drama The Match has ended the month-long reign of Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 at the South Korean box office, taking nearly two-thirds of all tickets sold over the weekend.

The Match took $3.53m from 544,529 admissions across the weekend (March 28-30), representing nearly 62% of total market share, according to Kobis, the Korean Film Council’s box office tracking service.

The film stars Lee Byung-hun, known for Squid Game and Concrete Utopia, as legendary Go player Cho Hun-hyeon and his real-life rivalry with Lee Chang-ho. Yoo Ah-in – whose drug scandal delayed the film’s opening and who was released in...

The South Korean box office saw a decisive new leader emerge over the weekend of March 28–30, as local film “The Match” dominated the charts with a commanding debut.

The sports drama, inspired by the real-life rivalry between Go masters Cho Hun-hyun and Lee Chang-ho, earned $3.5 million from 544,259 admissions, securing 61.74% of the weekend market share, according to Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council.

Directed by Kim Hyeong-ju, “The Match” benefitted from a strong star cast, including Lee Byung-hun and Yoo Ah-in, and wide distribution on 1,773 screens. Its cumulative gross since its March 26 release stands at $4.4 million with 700,845 admissions.

In second place, “Attack on Titan The Movie: The Last Attack” held on with $611,520 and 88,971 admissions. The Japanese franchise finale, now in its third weekend, has grossed $3.6 million with 539,927 total admissions.

Last week’s chart-topper, “Mickey 17,” slipped to third with $402,623 from 60,892 viewers. The Bong Joon Ho-directed sci-fi...

South Korea’s box office continued its post-peak cool-down this weekend as “Mickey 17” held on to the top spot for a fourth consecutive frame, despite modest earnings.

Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi epic, starring Robert Pattinson, brought in $928,843, accounting for 21.2% of the weekend market share, according to Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council. From March 21 to 23, the top 10 titles combined for just over $4.9 million in total grosses.

“Mickey 17” added 140,161 admissions over the weekend, taking its cumulative total to 2.8 million tickets sold and $19.1 million in earnings since its February 28 release.

In second place, “Attack on Titan the Movie: The Last Attack” earned $834,101 from 121,843 admissions across 391 screens. The Japanese franchise finale now stands at $2.6 million with nearly 400,000 admissions since debuting on March 13.

New entry “Snow White” debuted in third place with $611,310 from 92,703 admissions. The film, shown on more than 1,000 screens, claimed 13.9% of the box office share in its opening frame.

In its second weekend, advance theatrical screenings of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- , a re-edited episode version of the upcoming Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX TV series, earned 528 million yen (3.41 million Usd) on 306,000 admissions — only a 12 percent week-on-week drop — retaining first place in the box office ranking according to Kogyo Tsushinsha . The anime's official website also confirmed that the film's performance in the two-day weekend between Saturday and Sunday was 107.6 percent in gross and 106.8 percent in attendance compared to the previous weekend . The screenings now have a total of 1,432,794,300 yen (9.24 million Usd) earned from 856,371 ticket sales in ten days since debuting in 426 Japanese theaters on January 17. The two-weekend gross was 75.2 percent of that of Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Freedom in February 2024 ( 1.9 billion yen ). The live-action film adaptation of Kengo Hanazawa's action manga series Under Ninja opened in 340 theaters on January 24, earning 226 million yen (1.46 million Usd) on 160,000 admissions to make a third-place debut.