Asian

Koji Shiraishi is interested in strange indiscriminate murder at a sightseeing resort. He goes behind the camera to investigate the circumstances surrounding strange occurrences and interview the survivors.Read More »

Quote:
Yukio Mishima’s acclaimed 1956 novel Kinkakuji (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion) was inspired by an actual incident in 1950 when a disturbed monk burned down one of Kyoto’s most beautiful temple buildings. The temple requested that the name be changed to Shukakuji for this adaptation, which opens out the book’s internal monologue, structuring the anguished protagonist’s progress towards final conflagration through flashbacks as the police piece together their investigation. Raizo Ichikawa’s central performance attracts sympathy for this stuttering temple acolyte from a broken family, who sees in the Golden Pavilion a purity of beauty in direct contrast to his own imperfect existence. It’s a purity in danger of being defiled, however, as post-war occupation and reconstruction open the site to tourism, so he resolves to destroy pavilion in order to preserve it. Ichikawa’s fragmented direction draws together this awful logic, leaving the audience dangling exquisitely between understanding and outright horror as flames obliterate a priceless cultural monument. The director’s favourite among his own films.Read More »

I gaze on the moon
As I tread the drear wild,
And feel that my mother
Now thinks of her child;
As she looks on that moon
From our own cottage door,
Thro’ the woodbine whose fragrance
Shall cheer me no more.
Home, home, sweet sweet home,
There’s no place like home,
There’s no place like home.
—”Home, Sweet Home”
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Quote:
Set in the 16th century, an ambitious young samurai is adopted into a noble household, thereby attaining the necessary status to marry the daughter of the castle warden. Plans for the marriage are jeopardized, however, when a beautiful young woman, claiming to have lost her memory, appears. The enamored samurai marries her instead, but lives in constant fear that she will recover her memory.Read More »

Plot:

As the film opens, three characters seek shelter from a driving rainstorm (it never sprinkles in a Kurosawa film!) beneath the ruined Rashomon gate that guards the southern entrance to the court capital. As they wait for the storm to pass, the priest (Minoru Chiaki), the woodcutter (Takashi Shimura), and the commoner (Kichijiro Ueda) discuss a recent and scandalous crime––a noblewoman (Machiko Kyo) was raped in the forest, her samurai husband (Masayuki Mori) killed as a result of either murder or suicide, and a thief named Tajomaru (Toshiro Mifune) was arrested for the crime.Read More »

A love story between a 29-year-old woman, who has once been a prostitute but is now the mistress of a wealthy jewelry merchant, and a 19-year-old college student.Read More »

Plot Synopsis [SamuraiDVD.com]
This is another masterpiece from filmmaker KOBAYASHI Masaki, noted director of HARA KIRI, KWAIDAN, and SAMURAI REBELLION. The Japanese title is actually translated as “We give our lives for nothing”, and is the true heart and soul of this story. Based on a novel by YAMAMOTO Shugoro, who also wrote the books upon which SANJURO, KILL, and AFTER THE RAIN, were based, it tells the tale of a group of thieves and murderers who find it within themselves to sacrifice their lives with no hope of personal gain. NAKADAI Tatsuya stars as Sada, an expert with knives, whose mysterious past comes to light as he leads a group of fugitives in their last-ditch battle to save their home, a dilapidated inn, which does not welcome strangers in its doors. KATSU Shintaro plays against type in a pivotal role as one of the only outsiders ever allowed to drink at the inn. Tension and suspense lead up to a conclusion like no other. A magnificent motion picture, and a true work of art.Read More »

A renegade superspy infiltrates a violent gang of international jewel thieves in this fast-paced crime thriller from Nikkatsu Studios. His killer instincts honed to deadly perfection by a shadowy espionage bureau, Yabuki (Akira Kobayashi) abandons the organization that rained him and joins forces with fearless mercenary Yamawaki (Hideki Takahashi) to follow a trail of jewels stolen during the last days of World War II. When that trail leads Yabuki and Yamawaki to the highest levels of government and corporate malfeasance, the conspiracy is blown sky high and the bullets start to fly.Read More »

Synopsis
Toshirō Mifune (in the second of many films with Kurosawa), plays a young idealistic doctor, still a virgin, who works at his father’s (Takashi Shimura) clinic in a small and seedy district. However, during the war, he contracts syphilis from the blood of a patient when he cuts himself during an operation. Treating himself in secret and tormented by his conscience and celibacy, he rejects his heartbroken fiancée without explanation.Read More »