Japan

“Minamata disease” is a neurological disease caused by methylmercury poisoning named for its identification in Kumamoto Prefecture, where industrial wastewater from a Chisso Corporation chemical plant contaminated fish and shellfish consumed by communities around Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea. Filmed over 15 years, this sprawling documentary lays out this history of pollution dating back to the 1930s and decades long legal battles against the government for diagnosis certification and reparations. However the film gives itself over to the network of survivors, care providers, and supporters keeping the fight alive, following unexpected chutes and ladders from gregarious researchers’ theories pushing back against an intransigent medical establishment, to the passionate song lyrics of a woman suffering since childhood. Here Hara and Kobayashi return to core commitments of disability rights and individuals’ demands of the state, extending Noriaki Tsuchimoto’s landmark series on the Minamata struggle, and issuing a cry against political apathy.Read More »

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Directed by the Japanese king of kooky-cool, SABU, Hold Up Down has it all: bank robbers dressed in skin-tight Santa suits, the subway busker that looks like he is straight out of Woodstock, the suicidal church minister-turned-truck driver, a couple of twisted policemen – oh, and a key to a whole lotta cash.
SABU exploded on the Japanese film scene in 1986, first as an actor and later, taking a more firm role behind the camera as both director and scriptwriter with the acclaimed Dangan Runner in 1995. Hold Up Down is SABU’s second collaboration with all-male J-pop group V6 (they first starred in his previous Hard Luck Hero), which serves as a gentle reminder that, in Asia, pop stars who also act can find their CD sales actually increase (as opposed to the norm in this part of the world which seems to have the opposite effect)..Read More »

synopsis:
Kenichi Asakura is an uptight, hyper-square salesman. One day, three bank robbers
commandeer his van. They are in hot pursuit of their fellow robber who has snatched the
money. Unfortunately for the bank robbers, Asakura never drives over 40 km/h speed limit
even under the extreme situation.Read More »

While on his daily route as the driver of the local school bus, Michio Nishiumi sees his own infant son kidnapped from the vehicle by a masked assailant with a gun. A ransom is demanded, but the boy dies. Michio wants and needs his revenge.Read More »

Kobayashi Masaki’s 1968 Toho film about a man beaten to the point of deafness by his superior officer during WWII. He meets him again through his work as an inventor, and struggles through the challenge of his son’s romantic interest in the Officer’s daughter.Read More »

Review from The Montreal Gazette – Jan 10, 1970
BEAST ALLEY – directed by Eizo Sugawa; original Japanese version with English subtitles; at the Art Cinema

The only real beast in Beast Alley is a black and white Great Dane, who is incidental to the plot. There are, however, a lot of humans who behave in a rather beastly manner.

There’s a frustrated wife who burns her decrepit husband; an evil old man who preys on unhappy young women; a sinister villain who plays with gasoline and matches; and a host of unscrupulous, corrupt politicians and police detectives.Read More »

Beautiful young Oriko (Mariko Okada) has an unhappy marriage. Her husband Takashi (Tadahiko Sugano), owner of a securities company, has been having an affair and comes home only once in a week at most. In a poetry party, Oriko meets sculptor Mitsuharu (Isao Kimura), who was one of the lovers of Oriko’s deceased poetess mother…Read More »

Jie (Michiko Kuwano) attended a women’s university with the financial support of her geisha sister Oha (Hiroko Kawasaki) and became a lawyer. The aim. Michiko (Kuniko Miyake), one of the seven best friends from the same women’s college, is getting married. The man she’s marrying is her sister’s lover.

This is a women’s film featuring three Shochiku actresses from the pre-war era. Kuwano = intellectual and modern, Kawasaki = old-fashioned and unhappy, Miyake = high society and maternity. The cast has been imagined in a way that is very much like Shochiku. And then, in true Shochiku fashion, at the end of a series of misfortunes, we see the film as if nothing had ever happened before. A happy ending that let it all go by the wayside. It’s a very Shochiku film.Read More »

Quote: They said strange things happened around her. They said she was dangerous. They said she was a demon. Now naive little Izumi is about to uncover the truth behind her life of lies…Read More »