Japan

Synopsis:
Legendary animators Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata team up to create this nostalgic animated work aimed at adult women, based on a manga by Yuko Tone and Kei Okamoto. The film centers on Taeko, a 27-year-old office worker who is sick of her job and ready for a change. She suddenly recalls the year 1966, when she was young and full of hope. She ventures to rural Yamagata prefecture to visit her sister and her brother-in-law. There she helps with the family farm where they turn saffron flowers into pigment for lipstick. While there she meets a hunky young farmer who’s the cousin of her brother-in-law. She is immediately taken with his hard-working, salt-of-the-earth ways.Read More »

There’s no place like home:even with four children,the Uemura family is able to live
a modest but happy life in their cramped, rented flat. The parents support the two elder daughters’ artistic ambitions to the best of their ability, using all the means at their disposal to make it possible for Tomoko to paint and Nobuko to sing in a choir.
There is much rejoicing when the father is honoured for 25 years of service at his
company and awarded a cash prize to boot. Yet the family must make the painful discovery that joy and sorrow are often not far apart: not only does recognition as a painter continue to elude Tomoko, the Uemuras also learn that they will have to leave their home.
One of Tomoko’s paintings finally restores their lost happiness.Read More »

A famous Korean fashion photographer on assignment in Japan discovers a new kind of friendship with a mysterious male escort in Hamaguchi’s delicate character study. Anticipating his masterful epics, Asako I & II and Happy Hour, The Depths reveals Hamaguchi’s fascination with the unspoken and often indescribable bonds that create real intimacy. A Korean-Japanese coproduction, The Depths gives a new dimension to Hamaguchi’s oeuvre with its study of homosexual desire and the therapeutic potential of art making.Read More »

As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of achieving.Read More »

The film concerns Dr. Akagi, a doctor on an island in the Seto Inland Sea area during World War II. He runs into conflict with the military while trying to combat a hepatitis epidemic. Akagi earns the nickname “Dr. Liver” (カンゾー先生 Kanzō-sensei) because of his work, though the townsfolk use it as a humorous dig at his persistent diagnosis. Though the broad circumstance of Japan slowly losing the war is the setting, many of the interactions and situations tilt into humor, for instance; the very music used for the doctor running from patient to patient has an upbeat and light-hearted tone.Read More »

Not much info on this film out there, but here is a nice little rundown by Keiko McDonald from her book, From Book to Screen: Modern Japanese Literature in Films:

“Uguisu (The Nightingale) drew on a story of the same title published that year by Einosuke Ito. Here the frame of reference is a subgenre that called itself agrarian literature. Ito’s tale is an episodic account of peasants responding to poverty and depravation with cunning, simplicity, and often woeful ignorance.Read More »

Twenty six years after the execution of her soldier husband on the dying days of World War II the widow is still searching for the truth by meeting with, questioning and interviewing the dead man’s comrades, companions and executioner. The stories retold are one part of the reason why war is as bad as has been said. The state and existence of the survivors is another witness to the dangers of war and warmongers.Read More »

“Wake up! I’m a Prince!” ‘Sleeping Bride’ or ‘Glass Brain’ is teenage love-story of a girl who sleeps for 17 years, her only hope, a young boy…Read More »

A bus full of cult members gets stuck in snow. The cult has to stay in a mountain hotel. Strange things start to happen… This film was only released on VHS in Japan.
The music was composed by J. A. Seazer. And the screenplay was done by Izuru Deguchi and Ei Takatori (1952-2018). And some of the members from Gessyokukageki (月蝕歌劇団) founded by Ei Takatori also performed in this film.Read More »