James Balmont

(Image credit: Courtesy of studio)
By James Balmont
published yesterday
in Features
It’s been five years since Bong Joon Ho made Oscars history in 2020 with Parasite – a contemporary classic of social satire, and only the second film in history to win both the Cannes Palme d’Or and the Academy Award for Best Picture. Now, the wait for a follow-up is finally over as the long-delayed sci-fi romp Mickey 17 hits the big screen in the UK (7 March 2025).
To mark the occasion, the BFI invited the Ko...

Planet Earth’s most heavenly picture palaces and movie houses
Saturday 22 February 2025
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Edited by Phil de Semlyen
Global film editor
Contributor: James Balmont
There’s been a lot of talk of ‘saving cinemas’ in recent times, a sacred mission for moviegoers and filmmakers alike. From those old sticky-floored fleapits that show cult classics to fanatical filmlovers, to indies that serve up posh nosh to genteel crowds on comfy sofas, to out-of-town multiplexes with a million screens and nac...

Japan is famous for the way its cultural artefacts seem to evolve separately from the rest of the world. Travel to Tokyo and you can find fax machines that have continued to develop new bells and whistles long after their use in the west began its terminal decline in the 1990s.
Shokuhin sanpuru (literally: food samples), ubiquitous in restaurants and cafes across Japan, are another such Japan-centric creation, accepted as a part of daily culture from Hokkaido to Kyushu but rarely seen elsewhe...

Wake up! While you were yawning at the naffness of this year’s Oscars nominations and snoozing your way through the multiplexes’ blockbuster discards in ​“dump month” January, one of the country’s most dynamic film festivals pulled up to the doorstep with an arsenal from the far reaches of the Pacific.
The (deep breath) Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme kicks off today. Its the biggest event celebrating Japanese cinema in the whole of Blighty, and it offers a bumper package of features ...

In the years before Wong Kar-wai’s arthouse dramas competed for top prizes at Cannes, Hong Kong cinema had a decidedly different flavour. Already a global force by the early 70s, Hong Kong filmmaking was so popular that it trumped even Hollywood movies in some Eastern territories, with the mass production of stunt-fuelled kung fu spectacles the spur for much of this success. But after Bruce Lee’s death in 1973, the recycled sets and serious tone of Hong Kong’s martial arts cinema began to gro...

When Alex Ayuli coined the term “dream pop” in the late 80s, it was to distinguish the otherworldly sounds of 4AD bands like Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil and A.R. Kane from the more grounded “indie” groups of the era. These bands’ songs “sounded as though they’d been recorded in a flotation tank,” said Richard King in his alt-pop musical history book How Soon is Now? – the descriptor fit the music perfectly.
But fast-forward some 35 years, and a new wave of women from Denmark are channelli...

At the end of the 20th century, Japan’s ambient scene blossomed thanks to corporate sponsorship and a strong economy. Now the music is more popular than ever.
The newfound popularity of Japan’s ambient, new age kankyō ongaku (literally: “environmental music”) over the past decade is a fascinating trend. Its initial re-emergence, after all, was not the result of any real will or intent.
A quirk in the YouTube algorithm was to blame for the widespread phenomenon of users in the mid-to-late 2010...

One of the most tragic aspects of Mark Lanegan’s passing back at the start of 2022 was that it had seemed like, after a career spanning more than three decades, the hard-worn and weary singer was finally on the cusp of achieving greater recognition for his storied body of work. His harrowing memoir Sing Backwards and Weep had been a best-seller upon its release in 2020, shining a light on Lanegan’s central role in the Seattle grunge scene as the formidable frontman of Screaming Trees, and on ...

The director of the cult classic Korean wave sci-fi comedy reflects on his wild debut two decades on, and the forthcoming remake from Yorgos Lanthimos.
It was in early 2005 that I first stumbled across the unlikely image of a costumed Korean man lassoing planets in a fit of giddy mania in my local HMV. The DVD in question had ‘Tartan Asia Extreme’ plastered on the header, and since I’d already shat my pants watching Japanese children be put to slaughter in Battle Royale and Sadako crawl out o...

When it comes to filmgoing in central London, Leicester Square is undoubtedly king: its Odeons, Vues and Cineworlds make it a global tourist attraction for red-carpet-coveting fans. But amidst the royal array of cinemas, one misfit ‘Prince’ sticks out like a naughty child, vying for attention from a Chinatown back street.

That scamp is the Prince Charles: the capital’s legendary home of cult cinema, outlandish all-nighters and all kinds of weird and wonderful programming (which is explored in...

As a new monograph on Hong Kong photographer Wing Shya’s work is published, James Balmont charts the dreamlike legacy of Wong Kar-wai’s stills photographer
August 21, 2024
TextJames Balmont
Lead ImageSolace by Wing ShyaCourtesy of Session Press and Dashwood Books
What’s most striking about the work of Hong Kong photographer Wing Shya – best known for his behind-the-scenes snapshots from the films of Wong Kar-wai – is just how dreamy and sensual it all feels. Bursting with saturated colour, bl...

Cosmo Jarvis and Hiroyuki Sanada star in the new hit Hulu/FX/Disney+ series Shōgun, which brings to life Japan's violent feudal past in all its terrifying glory.
There's a stomach-churning moment in the debut episode of FX/Disney+'s Shōgun that sets the standard for the kind of brutality surely to follow. Having endured starvation, scurvy, and a captain's suicide aboard a ravaged Dutch trade ship, pilot major John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) and his surviving crew are shipwrecked off the coast...

Indie sleaze, rockstars and beer-soaked chaos: take a trip back to the legendary Vice-owned pub's 00s heyday
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There was a point in time, in the early ‘00s, when the Old Blue Last was quite literally the centre of London for kids like me.
The rowdy Shoreditch boozer — on the crossroads connecting Great Eastern Street with Curtain Road — was then a bastion of unhindered fun, lying almost exactly at the midpoint between the vintage clothes stores of Brick Lan...

The Brian Jonestown Massacre once seemed destined to become footnotes in rock history. Sure, the West Coast psych-rock troupe were beloved by vinyl lovers and bowl-cut enthusiasts in the 1990s, but their attempts to break into the mainstream had been repeatedly thwarted – usually through self-sabotage by their frontman Anton Newcombe – leaving their stoner anthems languishing in obscurity by the dawn of the new millennium.
Then came Dig!. The cult documentary catapulted the band to notoriety ...

On DEATH RAVE, the Japanese group brings a fusion of black metal, techno and visual art as an ‘absolutely new and overwhelming experience’
In the 90s, avant-garde “Japanoise” band Boredoms were known for incendiary performances, achieving prominence in the States after touring with Sonic Youth and Nirvana. In 2006, Borisdelivered a sludge metal shoegaze “frenzy” on Pink, the ninth best album of the year according to Pitchfork. Bo Ningen has soundtracked everything from the 2011 Venice Biennal...