Archive
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2024, Part 6
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the sixth of 2024, covers another five scores from a wide array of genres and countries, including a spectacular documentary score about dinosaurs, a Japanese action thriller based on a popular TV series, and three scores for a trio of acclaimed short films: one from France, one from the Netherlands, and one from the United States, several of which are on the shortlists to receive Short Film Academy Award nominations. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2024, Part 4
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the fourth of 2024, covers another six scores from a wide array of genres and countries: a French period courtroom comedy, a new adaptation of a classic of French literature, two Japanese TV scores, a Chinese animated fantasy film, and a Swedish TV series remake of a beloved children’s adventure! Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2023, Part 6
I’m pleased to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world. This article, the sixth of 2023, covers five scores from five very different projects from Japanese film and television, plus a delightful Christmas score from Norway. Read more…
The World of Film Scores – 2018 First Quarter Round-Up
In a break with my usual convention, I have decided that instead of doing a series of geographical articles at the end of the calendar year highlighting the best under-the-radar film scores, I am instead going to write four quarterly articles which spotlight the same types of scores – unheralded works from outside the Hollywood film music mainstream – but which are spaced throughout the year so that they are more timely in terms of when the films are released. As such, here is the first – a look at ten outstanding scores from the first three months of 2018, encompassing a wide range of projects from all over the world, including works from Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain, China, Russia, and beyond! Read more…
Best Scores of 2014 – Asia
The first installment in my series of articles looking at the best “under the radar” scores from around the world concentrates on music from films from Asia: specifically, the far eastern nations of China, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. Already in 2014 I have reviewed Christopher Young’s magnificent score for the Chinese epic fantasy adventure The Monkey King, and Jo-Yeong Wook’s score for the revisionist samurai action film Kundo: Age of the Rampant. In this article, I’m taking a deeper look at some other excellent works, ranging from anime movies and TV series from Japan, baseball dramas from Taiwan, and two of the highest-grossing films from Vietnam.
You can read my review of The Monkey King here, my review of Kundo: Age of the Rampant here.
GUNSHI KANBEE – Yugo Kanno
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The annual NHK Taiga drama is a year-long television series broadcast on Japan’s main television network, NHK, and has been a staple of Japanese television since the first one was broadcast in 1963. It is widely considered to be one of the most prestigious television events of the Japanese calendar, attracting the dream of Japan’s dramatic talent, actors, writers, directors and composers – recent previous Taiga dramas have included Clouds on the Slope scored by Joe Hisaishi, Yae No Sakura scored by Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Ryōmaden scored by Naoki Sato. The 2014 NHK Taiga drama is Gunshi Kanbee, an epic story of a young man finding his way through the war-like and feudal Japanese society of the 16th century. Directed by Kenji Yanaka, it stars Junichi Okada in the title role, and has an original score by 37-year-old Japanese composer Yugo Kanno. Read more…
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