James Balmont

The most terrifying month of the year is upon us, which means it’s of grave importance to start scheduling obscure horror movies into your watchlist – miss the mark this Halloween and who knows what terrible consequences could occur! Fortunately for those scared stiff by this prospect, we have got you covered, with an arsenal of eerie movies from Japan’s storied filmmaking canon that show there’s more to Japanese horror than supernatural folklore and long-haired ghosts (although there’s nothi...

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...

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When Philip Brophy coined the term “body horror” in 1983, in the article ‘Horrality: The Textuality of the Contemporary Horror Film’, it was with concern to a then-palpable trend in horror cinema in which “the fear… [and] destruction of the body” was the primary source of terror. Body-assimilation masterwork The Thing (1982) and metamorphosis classic An American Werewolf in London (1981) – in which “torture and agony [is] wrought upon a body devoid of control” – were named as corner...

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...

February 21, 2024

A key proponent of the New German Cinema of the 1970s, Wim Wenders has become a well-decorated man over a half-century of filmmaking. He’s won a Cannes Palme d’Or (Paris, Texas), a Cannes best director award (Wings of Desire) and a Venice Golden Lion (The State of Things), as well as receiving three separate nominations for dest documentary at the Academy Awards. But in 2024, the German icon is breaking new ground. For the first time ever, a Wenders narrative feature – his “...

I still remember the day in the early 00s, when I walked into HMV in search of Limp Bizkit and Marilyn Manson CDs, only to be met with the sight of a severed head peering out from racks of the world cinema aisle.
The film in question was Ichi the Killer – an absurdly gory gangster movie from Takashi Miikebanned in Germany and Malaysia, which required three-and-a-half minutes of cuts by the BBFC to secure release in the UK. The face on the cover was that of sadistic, self-mutilating antagonist...

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One of the most influential producers in the history of US alt-rock died from a heart attack this week at the age of 61. Steve Albini, formerly of bands like Big Black and Shellac; whose coarse and candid-sounding collaborations with bands like Pixies, PJ Harvey and Nirvana would be heralded for their influence on rock music production in the late 80s and early 90s, worked on over 1,000 records during his lifetime. He was revered for his minimal production methods and principled, DI...

From the Game of Thrones showrunners, Netflix's new series 3 Body Problem is adapted from a bestselling Chinese sci-fi novel that became a huge hit, despite China's historic censorship of the genre.
One day in Beijing, in 1967, astrophysics student Ye Wenjie witnesses her father being beaten to death by paramilitary forces. Later, she joins a military program in Mongolia as part of an agreement to avoid her own punishment, on the condition that she can never leave the base. At this chilly out...

Scores, soundtracks and iconic music to watch movies by – as picked by great film composers
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Edited by Phil de Semlyen
Global film editor
Has movie music ever been better? With legends like John Williams and Howard Shore still at work, Hans Zimmer at the peaks of his powers, and the likes of Jonny Greenwood, AR Rahman, Mica Levi, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross knocking it out of the park, the modern film score is a Dolby Atmos-enhancing feast of modernist compositions, lush orchestral...

Screening at the ICA and further afield from February, here are seven films to watch from the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2024
January 31, 2024
TextJames Balmont
Kicking off on February 2 in London – and travelling through 30 cities including Manchester, Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff until March 31 – is the 21st annual Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2024; the biggest and brightest of its kind in the UK.
The latest programme of films, collated under the banner of ‘Unforge...