Japan

Trainee designer Kasumi has married her employer in Tokyo, the manager of a design workshop, and has had a two-year affair with one of his clients. She and her unsuspecting husband are vacationing in Hokkaido with her ex-lover and his wife when their five-year old daughter Yuka disappears without a trace. Distraught, Kasumi clings to the idea that Yuka is somewhere alive and safe. She returns to the spot every year, hoping to find a clue. Meanwhile her marriage nearly collapses, and her ex-lover’s marriage does collapse. On her fifth visit to Hokkaido, she is shadowed by Utsumi, a detective who has his own ominous reasons for wanting to be involved…Read More »

Synopsis:
The film’s narrative follows three leading actresses, all appearing in the same movie (but not appearing in the same shot until the end of the film), and all undergoing their own personal crises. It’s very formally worked out, through a series of carefully balanced dialogues with confessors, synchronized confrontation scenes, and staggered flashbacks. If Farewell was Yoshida’s self-conscious Resnais tribute, this is him in Bergman mode (Mariko Okada’s story even begins with her experience hysterical mutism, à la Persona), though the finished product is much livelier and more pungent than anything Bergman would have come up with (maybe Zetterling’s The Girls is a more apposite reference point). On another level, it’s also referencing a big old Hollywood melodrama, pastel panoramas in various shades of bitch (there are also nods to All About Eve).Read More »

Synopsis:
Set in the last few years of the shogun’s rule, this period/ensemble movie depicts the lives of the young and the restless at a whorehouse. The protagonist is Saheiji, a resourceful, witty free spirit. It’s 1862, 6 years before the Shogun turned his political power over to the Emperor. Penniless Saheiji splashes out at a famous Shinagawa whorehouse. He’s forced to stay on at the whorehouse to repay his debt. At first Saheiji is regarded as an unwelcome guest who never leaves but it turns out he is not just a poor grifter. None of the whorehouse’s guests, hosts, servants and attending ladies are innocent but they are pragmatic schemers. Saheiji soon endears himself to them all and solves many whorehouse disputes with his wit. But it is slowly revealed that the seemingly perfect Saheiji is suffering from tuberculosis and his future is uncertain…Read More »

Shinichi “Sonny” Chiba returns as the reckless son of a private detective takes on the case of a minor league baseball pitcher who disappears right before signing a contract into the major leagues. Meanwhile, the body of an orthopedist is discovered in the river. Two cases come into play and are finally connected into one case. A sequel created by Director Kinji Fukasaku and Superstar Shinichi “Sonny” Chiba, chock full of action and refreshing laughter that will satisfy any audience!Read More »

Set in the 17th century when all forms of swordplay were banned, Hiken (Young Swordsman) stars Shogoro Ichikawa as Tenzen – a young swordsman who believes the ban is unfair. By contrast, his brother Chojuro (Hiroyuki Nagato) is a conformist, and keeps his opinions about the law to himself.

When Tenzen becomes possessed by his own evil sword style and is later banished, it falls to Chojuro to restore the family’s lost honor, and to challenge Tenzen to a death-duel!Read More »

Synopsis
A girl finds an old handgun in her attic and the symbolic object conjures a mystical scene of samurai gathering within the moss-grown location of Kasosan Shrine in Tochigi Prefecture.Read More »

Quote:
Commencing well-respected Nippon director Kazuo Kuroki’s sixth decade behind the camera, “A Boy’s Summer in 1945” (literally “A Beautiful Summer in Kirishima”) is a lyric, novelistic drama set in the countryside in the last days before Japan’s surrender ending WWII. Striking a welcome retro note in its languid pacing and delicate handling of seriocomic ensemble threads, handsome production is a natural for fests. It might also prove a cornerstone for retrospectives or ancillary releases of works by a helmer (“Preparation of the Festival,” “Ronin-gai”) who’s long been appreciated at home but has won just limited attention abroad.Read More »

Synopsis:
Hiroshi Inagaki’s acclaimed Samurai Trilogy is based on the novel that has been called Japan’s Gone with the Wind. This sweeping saga of the legendary seventeenth-century samurai Musashi Miyamoto (powerfully portrayed by Toshiro Mifune) plays out against the turmoil of a devastating civil war. The Trilogy (whose first part won an Academy Award) follows Musashi’s odyssey from unruly youth to enlightened warrior. In the second and most violent installment, Duel at Ichijoji Temple, Musashi beats a samurai armed with a chain and sickle and is later set upon by eighty samurai disciples—orchestrated by the sinister Kojiro—while the two women who love him watch helplessly.Read More »

Synopsis:
Hiroshi Inagaki’s acclaimed Samurai Trilogy is based on the novel that has been called Japan’s Gone with the Wind. This sweeping saga of the legendary seventeenth-century samurai Musashi Miyamoto (powerfully portrayed by Toshiro Mifune) plays out against the turmoil of a devastating civil war. The Trilogy (whose first part won an Academy Award) follows Musashi’s odyssey from unruly youth to enlightened warrior. In the third installment, Duel at Ganryu Island, Musashi reunites tragically with the women who love him, and battles for samurai supremacy in a climactic confrontation with his lifelong nemesis.Read More »