Japan

Wandering gambler movie filled with humor and compassion. An odd couple of a gangster and a masterless samurai becomes involved in a variety of events as they travel.

Rare film from Tai Kato, one of the all-time greats.Read More »

A light comedy which celebrates youth’s freedoms, aspirations, and boundless energy. Mayumi and Mai are hair stylists who open a Barber shop called The Pink Cut. The place is an immediate success, due mostly to their super-short skirts. When the girls decide to stop wearing underpanties, business goes thru the roof. Eventually Main and Mayumi add special massages and cream rinses to their list of extras. The girls laugh all the way to the bank. Ah, the joys of entrepreneurship!Read More »

Masahiro Makino’s attempt at a Busby Berkeley-style musical. Quality is mediocre (much better than the older version we had though), but the film is a true revelation! It combines the elaborate kaleidoscopic choreography of Berkeley musicals with a charming down-to-earth comedy narrative.Read More »

Quote:
Documentary director Yuko portrays a school violence incident from three years ago that resulted in suicides, while she was teaching classes at her father’s cram school. As her documentary project progresses, Yuko discovers a hidden truth and becomes deeply involved in the lives of the families pained by that secret truth.Read More »

Rouven Linnarz wrote:
Although she would go on to make feature films as an actress, Kinuyo Tanaka’s last project as a director would be the 1963 jidaigeki “Love Under the Crucifix”, a work based on the novel “Ogin-sama” by Toko Kon. At the same time, given her development as a filmmaker, this is truly an interesting climax to a career which saw her progressing more and more, developing her skills, especially when it comes to cinematic storytelling. Additionally, the themes that defined her previous works such as “Love Letter” and “Forever a Woman” also found a fitting conclusion in a feature that, even though it was not set in the present as her other movies, it certainly made a very relevant point about gender roles within Japanese society as well as the conflict between duty and desire as expressed in the story of the main characters.Read More »

1580. Ninja Kotaro gets killed by the evil Hattori Hanzo after he discovers that the local shogun and his son aren’t related. It’s up to Kotaro’s nubile and innocent virginal daughter Kaede to exact revenge on Hanzo for bumping off her dad. Kaede learns various lethal sexual martial arts techniques in order to accomplish this particular goal.Read More »

A conceptual pinku film which is conceived of 60 shots which all are 60 seconds long and represent an absurdist take on the narrative and stylistic schemes of erotic cinema.Read More »

Violence, illegal pay-offs, drugs, intimidation – all things that you would relate to the yakuza, the Japanese mafia, but Gen Takahashi’s epic 3-hour exposé introduces us to the most dangerous gang on the streets – Japanese Law Enforcement. Takeda (Shun Sugata) is an honest police officer, father and husband, but after he’s promoted to detective he quickly becomes embroiled in dirty back room dealings, blackmail, and corruption that goes right to the top of the force. Meanwhile renegade investigator Kusama (Junichi Kawamoto) must decide whether he should shake the foundations of Japanese law enforcement with the information that has come into his possession about the police. What will happen if both these men listen to their consciences?Read More »

Plot:
In the 1990’s Kenjo dies in a terrorist gas attack and his girlfriend, Haruka, is killed while doing her rounds as a prostitute. In 2002, the two of them meet up again…but how can this be possible when they are both dead?Read More »