Countdown to Christmas 2019 in Tokyo

Posted on December 26, 2019 by tokyofox

Christmas lights (known as illuminations in Japan) are a big deal in Tokyo and from November each Winter they begin to appear around the city in a range of displays. Having included them in my festive posts the last two years I felt obliged to continue the tradition so here are a couple of pictures from the ten minutes I spent at Shibuya Blue Cave 2019 (below) which stretched for about 800 metres between Shibuya Koen Dori Street and Yoyogi Park Keyaki Namiki. Approximately 600,000 blue LED lights were used to light up the avenue.

 

On the way home from my friend Marina’s leaving party in Kichijoji I also snapped a quick picture of Santa’s Continue reading →

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Nippon TV Tower’s Star Wars Exhibition Returns To Tokyo On The Opening Day Of The New Film

Posted on December 22, 2019 by tokyofox

 

The 20th December was an important date on the calendar in Tokyo for Star Wars fans. The much hyped final movie in the Skywalker saga was released and it was also the first day of a free Star Wars exhibition at Nippon TV Tower (1-6-1 Higashishimbashi, Minato-Ku). It runs until the 29th December and there has been one to coincide with the release of each film from the sequel trilogy.

Sadly I was unaware of the event when ‘The Force Awakens‘ (2015) came out but I did know about it for ‘The Last Jedi‘ (2017). Admittedly, I never thought about whether the event was taking place this year but just a few days before it began I found out about it from Continue reading →

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On The Star Wars Promotional Trail In Tokyo Ahead Of The Release Of ‘The Rise Of Skywalker’

Posted on December 20, 2019 by tokyofox

#ForceFridayIII was the start of the journey towards ‘The Rise Of Skywalker‘ (2019) at the beginning of September and, after all kinds of promotional campaigns, that film was finally released today (December 20th) and Tokyo Fox was of course there to see it in the first showing at 8:30 this morning! It’s such a relief to have finally seen it without any spoilers. Fear not as there’ll be none on here whatsoever.

 

No country seems to do promotion like the Japanese and there were many events and products tied in to the marketing of the ninth and final film in the Skywalker story. The Star Wars Identities interactive exhibition opened on August 8th (and runs until January 13th), a few stores had ‘#ForceFridayIII‘ midnight events on September 5th and then there’s the ongoing ‘Star Wars Bright Christmas‘ in Marunouchi. More on that later.

The first thing to mention is the Continue reading →

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TF Top 19……Photos For 2019 (End Of Year Filler Post!)

Posted on December 17, 2019 by tokyofox

This lame and lazy half-assed compilation post idea was ushered in at the end of last year with an eye on permanently replacing the ‘TF Top 10……Filming Location Trips For (year)’ series which has long been running out of steam and will surely need replacing in a year or two if I am unable to go on an overseas trip! They say a picture paints a thousand words so rather than write a load of words about these photos, I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

1. Sakaiminato Station, Tottori Prefecture. More details here.

2. Hotel Areaone Sakaiminato Marina Continue reading →

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TF Top 10……Filming Locations From Movies Made In The 2010s

Posted on December 14, 2019 by tokyofox

Movie locations have long been the bread and butter of this website. The stats reveal that the filming location posts get more hits than anything else and consistently continue to do so too! The decade with no snappy name (the 2010s still just doesn’t sound right does it?) is drawing to a close and it’s time to reflect upon the last ten years by compiling some of the location shots from films released from 2010 onwards. Think of this as being something akin to a work resume! Locations include the likes of Australia, Japan, Macau, South Korea, Thailand, the UK and the USA. Here then, listed in chronological order, is the Tokyo Fox Top 10…….filming locations from movies made in the 2010s.

1. ‘Cemetery Junction‘ (2010), Loughborough, UK. More details here

 

2. ‘Black Swan‘ (2010), New Continue reading →

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This Tropical Plant Dome In Tokyo Certainly Hits The Target!

Posted on December 11, 2019 by tokyofox

When I read something about this tropical plant dome at Halloween I really believed that it was my first time to know of the place. However, it seems I passed by it en-route to Dinosaur Bridge (a.k.a. Tokyo Gate Bridge) in February last year and was truly impressed by the structures. I wanted to investigate then but forgot all about it once I was done at the bridge.

  

22 months later and, having visited the tropical greenhouse with my wife, I realised that it was the same place I had noticed on that bike ride to the aforementioned bridge. It was the collection of giant Continue reading →

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TF Top 10……Films Set In Japan From The 2010s

Posted on December 8, 2019 by tokyofox

The standard of films “set” in Japan in the last ten years has overall been pretty poor and so ‘Cars 2‘ (2011), ‘47 Rōnin‘ (2013) and ‘Batman Ninja‘ (2018) all failed to make this list due to their low Tokyo Fox ratings. Hopefully, I’ve been fairly extensive and have reviewed every film set in Japan from the last decade but no doubt one or two have slipped my attention! Let me know! Usually I just list such things from 1-10 but this time it’ll be done in the traditional way counting down to that all-important number one at the bottom of this post. The tension is probably killing you so lets get started…

10. The Forest (2016) –  Read the review here

9. The Continue reading →

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Interesting Japanese Playground Structures #23 – Octopus Slide

Posted on December 5, 2019 by tokyofox

Many of the parks and children’s playgrounds in Japan, particularly in Tokyo, are quite poor compared to other countries in terms of space, surroundings and a lack of grass. However, a handful of them do tend to possess extremely creative structures and they will be explored in this series.

Nickname: Octopus Park

Location: 889 Continue reading →

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Star Wars Bright Christmas In Marunouchi

Posted on December 2, 2019 by tokyofox

 

In recent years Star Wars has become a big part of the festive season with the releases of ‘The Force Awakens‘ (2015), ‘Rogue One‘ (2016) and ‘The Last Jedi‘ (2017) in mid-December. After a break last year, the third and final part of the sequel trilogy comes to an end this Christmas when ‘The Rise of Skywalker‘ finally sees the light of day.

Force Friday III at the start of September marked the start of the journey towards the ninth film in the Skywalker saga, and last month saw the introduction of Marunouchi Bright Christmas when that area of Tokyo was Continue reading →

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Review: Films Set In Japan – Earthquake Bird (2019)

Posted on November 29, 2019 by tokyofox

This Netflix movie was released on the video-on-demand streaming service on November 15th and is based on the novel of the same name (2001) by British author Susanna Jones. It stars Swedish actress Alicia Vikander who’s done films in her native Swedish tongue as well as Danish (‘A Royal Affair‘), English and has now added Japanese to that list. She isn’t fluent as many people have reported but just learned her dialogue which it has to be said is quite lengthy in parts.

 

No surprise really given that she plays a translator in the film and so, with the help of a language coach, she managed to pull it off far better than anyone else has ever managed to do. She should be given a lot of credit but it’s not Continue reading →

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