Asian

Non-ko (36-sai Kaji Tetsudai), 7th film directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri. Stars Maki Sakai and Gen Hoshino (Shakerock). Nobuko commonly called Nonko who is 36 years old and a once-divorced woman returns Shinto shrine that her family runs, to help out around the house. There is no drive and no place to belong, just a backwards little country town. The only thing she does is riding her bicycle and going to the bar to drink with the owner, an another divorcee. She cannot remember the last time she had sex. One day, Nonko encounters a young man named Masaru who has great expectations about selling chicks at shrine’s festival. Masaru is rather naive and pitiable, but this earnest and straightforward younger man puts a smile back on her face, and she gradually becomes more emotionally and physically receptive…Read More »

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-La pierre de l’attente (1991) about a girl who meets his future husband in a boat people camp. They later establish in France (Paris 13eme arrondissement, “our” Chinatown !), have a kid…but their serenity is broken when the man discovers a terrible secret… based on an old vietnamese tale…but I won’t describe it as it’ll spoil the film … and the secret mentionnedRead More »

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this one was the mandatory project every cinema student has to make at the end of his studies. Also based on a vietnamese tale , image seems to be transfered from a videotape, not fantastic quality, but I presume you’ll never see it in better form…
Anyway, it’s also the first apparition of the incredibly beautiful Yen-Khe Luguern …a few years before she married Tran Anh Hung… that’s enough for meRead More »

Synopsis
Narrow Street is the story of two youths: Xia, an easygoing, good-humored mechanic, and Yu, who is rather shy and delicate. They first meet in the late sixties, during the chaotic days of the Cultural Revolution in China. The chaos and desperation around them strengthens their friendship, but one day Xia discovers that his friend actually a girl. Yu then tells him her story – the sufferings of her family, why she had to disguise herself. When Xia tries to find a wig for her, he is badly beaten, and by the time he leaves the hospital, Yu has disappeared. The film is a powerful condemnation of the political radicalism of the Cultural Revolution and shows how ordinary people were victimized during a decade of turmoil.Read More »

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A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.Read More »

The third entry in the unrelated series which began with Shiryo No Wana, Toshiharu Ikeda’s bloody horror film deals with a policewoman (Megumi Yokoyama) investigating the apparent suicide of a college coed. The prime suspects include the girl’s professor, who may have been having an affair with her, and the professor’s wife, who frequents lesbian bars. Gruesome axe murders and mutilations ensue, leading Yokoyama to a shocking discovery. Less grisly than its predecessors, this installment is perhaps the best-scripted of the three.Read More »

Two brothers compete for the amorous favors of a young woman during a seaside summer of gambling, boating, and drinking, in this seminal Sun Tribe (taiyozoku) film from director Ko Nakahira. Adapted from the controversial novel by Shintaro Ishihara, and critically savaged for its lurid portrayal of the postwar sexual revolution among Japan’s young and privileged, Crazed Fruit is an anarchic outcry against tradition and the older generation.Read More »

Shuji Terayama and J.A.Seazer’s phantasmagoric folk-psych-symph-prog-rock opera. Historical Tenjo Sajiki performance from 1978. A brief synopsis (for a somewhat different version of the play) is given below. Much of the symbolism of Shintokumaru is shared with Terayama’s earlier masterpiece motion picture Pastoral: to die in the country (also known as Pastoral hide-and-seek).Read More »

Hikaru and Ichiro are close friends in high school. Hikaru’s elder brother Tadashi fell in love with Ichiro’s elder sister, Mikako at first sight. Although she gave the cold shoulder to Tadashi, she gradually became fond of Tadashi.Read More »