Quote:
A Nutshell Review: Dixieland Daimyo, 26 October 2006
Author: DICK STEEL from Singapore
My initial reaction was, this sure is one strange movie. Set in the late 19th century and after the end of the American Civil War, three slaves decided to make their way back to Africa, but en route, found themselves on the shores of Japan after a shipwreck. From then on, it’s a weird mix of Japanese shogun intrigue and jazz music fused into a somewhat nonsensical end.Read More »
Quote:
…
Peter High: Your war films seem to fall into two categories – those large, epic productions you did for Toho like Gekido no Showa-shi Okinawa kesen (The Battle of Okinawa, 1971) and the low-budget, personal ones financed by yourself, like Nikudan (The Human Bullet, 1968) and Tokkan (Batle Cry, 1975).Read More »
Veteran director Juzo Itami who — shot to fame with his sharply satirical Ososhiki and Tampopo — turns to decidedly sweeter fare in this melodrama about the life of a mentally handicapped young man and his devoted sister after their famous novelist father and housewife mother go to Australia on a business trip. Adapted from the novel by Nobel Laureate and brother-in-law to Itami, Kenzaburo Oe, the film centers on Iyo (Atsuro Watabe) — a brain damaged lad who is a gifted musician — and his artist sister Ma-chan (Hinako Saeki), who slowly learn about the darker, more complicated life outside their idyllic home. One catalyst in this transition is Arai-kun (Masayuki Imai) who at first seems like not only the perfect swim instructor for Iyo — he’s kind and patient — but also the perfect boyfriend for Ma-chan. Unfortunately, Arai-kun has a darker side, which comes out in unfortunate ways. Itami’s wife, Nobuko Miyamoto, also appears. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie GuideRead More »
“Certainly the oddest Oshima film yet to surface in this country,” was how Vincent Canby, an Oshima champion, characterized Dear Summer Sister when it got its first New York release in 1985, and the film remains quite amazingly strange.Read More »
Ten years in the making, Kazuo Hara’s three-and-a-half-hour-long epic is a longitudinal study of asbestos victims demanding reparations from a heartless state. Hara records the eight-year struggle of the plaintiffs and their lawyers. A dogged and dramatic depiction of their intense battle.Read More »
Synopsis:
Fresh off the box-office success of Violated Angels, an eroticized dramatization of the Richard Speck case, director Koji Wakamatsu turned his attention to another real-life criminal, Yoshio Kodaira, the rapist who terrorized Tokyo in the post-WWII period. Renamed Marqui de Sadao here, and played with a skillfully detached cruelty by future director Osamu Yamashita (Joji Zankokushi), the rapist is depicted as far more perverse than his real-life model, including whipping and mutilation in his bag of evil tricks. As in Wakamatsu’s previous film, capitalism takes the blame for nearly every wrong in Japanese society, but in the context of such an exploitative and calculated attempt to earn box-office attention, much of the social criticism falls flat. Miki Hayashi co-stars with Kazue Sakamoto and Mikiko Ohkawa.Read More »
Synopsis: In the Edo era, two man arrive in a village and engage in criminal activity. While one of them becomes successful and rich, the other gets betrayed and ends up in prison, burning for revenge. The truth changes with the viewpoint in this previously unavailable Wakamatsu film, which has inspired comparisons to Rashomon.Read More »
Quote:
The story centers on a group of young people who travel back in time when they are in a movie theater just before closing time. They witness deaths during the closing days of Japan’s feudal times and on the battlefront in China before they are sent to Hiroshima just before the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of the city.Read More »
Quote:
Tora-san, the näive and romantic peddler, returns once more to his home in Hokkaido where, as usual, he falls in love with a lovely young lady. The girl this time is Rinko Ueno, who has come home in an attempt to repair her relationship with her gruff veterinarian father, Junkichi ‘Jun’ Ueno. Tora-san gets caught up in the entanglements not only between Rinko and her father but between Dr. Ueno and Etsuko, a restauranteur with amorous plans for the ornery veterinarianRead More »