A rather sad tale of impossible love from first-time director Sumitra Peries, wife of famed Sri Lankan director Lester James Peries. A boy and girl fall for each other though they know this can never be. She belongs to a lower social strata than he does. The film is basically her reflections on this failed love affair.Read More »
Synopsis:
The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On is a brilliant exploration of memory and war guilt, a subject often ignored in modern Japan. In this controversial documentary, Kazuo Hara follows Kenzo Okuzaki in his real-life struggle against Emperor Hirohito. He proudly declares that he shot BBs at the Royal Palace, distributed pornographic images of the Emperor, and once killed a man for the sake of his strange crusade. As the film progresses, Okuzaki reveals a gruesome mystery: why were some Japanese officers killing their own soldiers during WWII? What happened to their bodies? Okuzaki begs, cajoles, and occasionally beats the story out of elderly veterans.Read More »
Quote:
Hishakaku (Koji Tsuruta), a kyakubun (visitor) with the Kokin gang, frees his lover Otoyo (Junko Fuji) from a brothel run by boss Oyokota (Tatsuo Endo), accompanied by Miyagawa (Ken Takakura) and other Kokin gangsters — and consequently brawls with Oyokota’s gang. After killing several of Oyokota’s men, including a former anikibun (elder brother) who has betrayed him, Hishakaku flees, with the police in close pursuit, and takes refuge in a strange house. There, he encounters Kiratsune (Ryutaro Tatsumi), an old man who calmly invites him in, gives him sake, and advises him to give himself up. Struck by the nobility of the old man’s character and the sageness of his advice, Hishakaku does as he says.Read More »
Exil is a visionary narration of the exile of Cambodians during the Red Khmer regime, during which the country was renamed Democratic Kampuchea.Read More »
Minoru Kawasaki (The Calamari Wrestler, Executive Koala) returns with yet another bizarre offering of Japanese film oddity.
Taisho’s father is a supermodel cat, and everybody believes that Taisho will be a supermodel as well. His family has great expectations of him, because he is the eldest son, but he can’t bear all the pressure and runs away from home.Read More »
Quote:
Kang lives alone in a big house, Non in a small apartment in town. They meet, and then part, their days flowing on as before.Read More »
An elaborate criminal tango based around treasure hidden during WWII.
Write-up by sketchesofcinema:
Sonny Chiba and Kinji Fukasaku head to Taiwan in this international action thriller influenced by spy films and Hitchcock movies. Chiba is a playboy pilot who is mistaken for someone who he isn’t after witnessing a murder in ski centre. The other witness is a Taiwanese lady who is vacationing in Japan. Chiba agrees to fly her back home, but as soon as they land they run into gangsters who are searching for a lost WWII treasure and believe Chiba is the key to finding it.Read More »
“Hashimoto Shinobu wrote the script based on Ishimori Nobuo’s original story, which won prizes including the first Mimei Literature Award. Depicts an Ainu girl and her younger brother living in a Hokkaido kotan (Ainu village), as they overcome discrimination and poverty.”Read More »
Japanese artist, Foujita, is Paris’ darling in the roaring twenties, loved for his delicate nudes. After leaving his 1st wife, Fernande, he meets Lucie Badoud and names her Yuki (snow in Japanese) after her exquisitely pale skin. Together with their friends Van Dongen, Kisling, Picasso, Modigliani & Kiki, they go to all the parties! On the outbreak of WWII, Foujita returns to Japan with his new Japanese wife, Kimiyo. He exhibits his war paintings that are much darker than the delicate whites of his Paris period. As the battles intensify, Foujita retreats to the country with Kimiyo and discover a Japan he never knew. Foujita returns to France years later. Here, newly naturalised, he takes on the French name Léonard and builds the chapel “Notre Dame de la Paix” in Reims, his final work.Read More »