Japan

A version of the famous kabuki play Yotsuya Kaidan from 1981.Read More »

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Although it contains few directorial flourishes (apparently Kurosawa was saving those for the last movie), The Nouveau Riche has the best story of the series, a twisty plot that manages to be both surprising and hilarious. Much more than a flimsy vehicle for the two leads, the story is a cleverly constructed farce with enough substance to stand on its own. The fact that it features the Yuji and Kosaku characters makes it even better.Read More »

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The story deals with a trombone player, Ibuki, who’s taking a “working” honeymoon with his wife. While they travel via train to the next gig, his wife disappears. Thinking she left him, Ibuki drowns his sorrow in beer. Depressed, he returns home to find her dead body. The police immediately suspect him, but he escapes and goes into the underground to find the real killer.Read More »

Based on a mystery by Taiwanese-Japanese author Chin Shun-shin. After two elderly men in Yokohama quarrel over a Yang dynasty artifact, one of the men turns up dead with mysterious claw marks across his face. A detective takes up the case, and uncovers secrets dating back to war crimes committed during Japan’s invasion of China in WWII.Read More »

Romance, rape, tension, repression and death: these are the quintessential themes explored in this dialogue-free Japanese black-and-white movie. A Buddhist priest rescues a homeless girl and brings her into his temple’s household. Soon she becomes an essential part of the place. One night she is raped by a young man who then becomes her lover. The priest happens on them one night as they make love before the temple shrine, and he becomes erotically obsessed.Read More »

Synopsis
Based in part on the life of the rakugo artist Beikyo Katsura the 2nd (1860-1904), Song of the Devil is a story about the pursuit for ultimate artistry. This film is based on the novel by Yoshikazu Fujimoto, a screenwriter-turned-novelist who was an apprentice to Yuzo Kawashima. The leading roles of Bakyo and Rokyu are performed by actual rakugo artists.

Bakyo is a talented but unsuccessful rakugo artist. The very successful Rokyu wants to take Bakyo under his wings, but Bakyo refuses, claiming that Rokyu’s rakugo is compromised by the elements of kabuki. But Bakyo changes his mind and determines to learn (or steal) Rokyu’s craft and makes it his own.Read More »

Pu Zhe, the younger brother of the Emperor of Manchukuo, Pu Wen, marries Ryuko the daughter of a long-established aristocratic family – all in the interest of the Japanese rulers, which legitimizes the relationship between Japan and its Chinese puppet state. To the surprise of all , a deep love between Pu Zhe and Ryuko develops. It is put to the test when Japan loses the war, Manchukuo is dissolved and the imperial court must flee. The lovers now have to separate: Pu Zhe tries to escape to Japan with his brother, while Ryuko flees with her daughter Eisei over the country. A film on the relationship between Pujie (1907-94), brother of the “last emperor” Puyi and his second wife, Marquise Hiro Saga (1914-87).Read More »

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail, the fourth film from Akira Kurosawa, is based on
a legendary twelfth-century incident in which the lord Yoshitsune, with the help of a group of samurai, crosses enemy territory disguised as a monk. The story was dramatized for centuries in Noh and Kabuki theater, and here it becomes one of the director’s lightest, most farcical films.Read More »

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A young and almost autistic-acting man arrives in Tokyo and wanders the streets, running afoul of some Yakuza and proving to be more than he appears to be. The young man speaks very little and his favorite phrase seems to be “not needed” and that’s generally in reference to Yakuza. He is taken into this gang and proves that he’s not well balanced by shooting a couple of drug dealers and then makes a pin cushion out of a rival gang leader, so he’s revered by those that he seems to hate, although they’re quite wary of him with good reason. The young man also hooks up with one of the Yakuza babes, maybe she’s a hooker, maybe she’s just a hanger-on, I couldn’t really tell, but somehow they get their mitts on some acid that was taken from the drug dealers that they young man shot and are going to flee to Fiji, but not before they get into skate-boarding some and wander the streets. This has lots of seemingly disparate parts that all come together in the end, and for a film that’s fairly low key it’s also quite bloody and violent. I guess it’s maybe some kind of commentary on disaffected youth in Japan but it also kicks butt and is well worth seeing for fans of crazed Japanese movies.Read More »