Synopsis
The film tells the story of a recently unemployed factory worker in the city of Anyang in Henan province, who comes across an abandoned child. Discovering that the child belongs to a local prostitute and mobster, the poor worker agrees to take care of the baby. When the mobster discovers that he is dying of cancer, however, he attempts to take the child back, now his only heir.Read More »
Postwar Tokyo. Pin (Jukichi Uno) and Toku (Taiji Tonoyama) live in the squatter area of Kappanuma, also known as “The Ditch”. Pin and Toku are avid gamblers. They take in Tsuru (Nobuko Otowa), a slightly demented woman who has run away from a geisha house. In order to rip Tsuru off, Pin lies that he’s a student who can’t afford his school fees. Tsuru willingly whores herself to support Pin. Eventually the neighbours start to exploit Tsuru as well.Read More »
A wife decides to take desperate measures to try and hold her decade-old marriage together, including foresaking her accepted obligations.Read More »
letterboxd:
Once again, director Shunichi Kajima and star Takanori Jinnai are teaming up to create a new type of yakuza film that stylishly depicts the short but vibrant life of legendary urban yakuza Takashi Hanagata.Read More »
One day a company executive learns that his younger brother, whom he recommended, embezzled company funds. To save the situation he withdraws his life savings and gives money to his younger brother. He then suddenly disappears…Read More »
imdb:
Your Place or Mine! explores the difficulties of finding true love in the modern Hong Kong setting via the encounters of two advertising executives, Wai and Patrick. Wai is a faithful guy who often falls for the girl that he grooms. However he is often dumped by them once they found fame and someone better than him. Just when he was about to give up on finding true love, he met an innocent fish ball seller and a tough boss who both falls for him and left him even more undecided in love. Patrick on the other hand is a playboy who keeps a girlfriend at home while frequently has one night stands outside. Can a colleague who has crush on him since school days change his cheating ways?Read More »
imdb Bandits on the Wind, Inagaki. This movie is beautiful, funny, heroic. It’s a shame it’s not better known. At one point the most immature and pathological bandit (in a bad bunch) is forced to pretend to be a prince. The timing that shows this Japanese’s inability to sit cross legged is hysterical. There’s a wonderful joke where a bandit weeps to recall how peasants were forced to build a defensive wall, and then slaughtered to keep it secret. “How did you escape?” another bandit wants to know. “Escape nothing: I was one of the guys doing the killing!” The martial arts triangle defense–two katana and a spear–is stellar. The bandits blend cooperation and chaos as it suits them; in the end their Bushido is heroic.Read More »
Period action/melodrama. In 1840, retainers of the Tokugawa Shoganate harshly compete with each other in deciding the successor of the 14th Shogun Iemochi. Among them is Lord Nakano, known as the Baron of Mukōjima. To establish his grandson, Inuchiyo, as the most promising candidate, he makes efforts to get the official permission from Ienari, a retired Shogun, but who is still seizing power in place of sickly Iemochi. For Nakano, the most reliable underling is his daughter-in-law, Lady Omiyo, who has long been gaining Ienari’s favor. But not only because Ienari has problems in his health for his age, but because Omiyo’s servant, Tomi, is indeed a spy sent by Shimada Matazaemon, the rival of Nakano, he cannot advance the scario as he originally planned. Read More »
Quote:
A Japanese businessman is sent to Sri Lanka and meets a beautiful Japanese woman with a past. They befriend an old Japanese-Indian widow who has an estranged son in Japan.Read More »