Japan

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A trio of teenaged tarts try to earn money through shoplifting and prostitution scams and get into trouble deep. Hilarious scenes where the girls try to pick up gaijin at Osaka’s World Expo 70. A colorful kaleidoscope of nudity, violence, drama, yakuza machinations and music, with cameos by transvestite (transsexual?) singer/actor Ikehata Shinnosuke (aka “Peter”, see here and there), who still acts today and did voiceover for Death Note: The Last Name (!?) and Wada “Akko” Akiko who beats up yakuza thugs and croons the film’s theme song.Read More »

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“When two hapless electricians go out on a job, they have every reason to believe that it’ll be a job like any other. But the bumbling twosome soon find themselves zapped into a virtual reality war zone! This Zone is an artificial dimension set up by Iria, a cute, tough-as-nails bounty hunter and her super-intelligent computer, Bob, to do battle with Zeiram, a seemingly indestructible alien that’s been genetically engineered to kill. The electricians do their best to help Iria take on Zeiram in this epic adventure. Created and directed by noted illustrator Keita Amemuya (Moon Over Tao, Mechanical Violator Hakaider) and starring Yuko Moriyama (Kunoichi Lady Ninja).”Read More »

Synopsis:
Kanji Watanabe is a longtime bureaucrat in a city office who, along with the rest of the office, spends his entire working life doing nothing. He learns he is dying of cancer and wants to find some meaning in his life. He finds himself unable to talk with his family, and spends a night on the town with a novelist, but that leaves him unfulfilled. He next spends time with a young woman from his office, but finally decides he can make a difference through his job… After Watanabe’s death, co-workers at his funeral discuss his behavior over the last several months and debate why he suddenly became assertive in his job to promote a city park, and resolve to be more like Watanabe.Read More »

Kazuo Kuroki’s international award-winning period drama was produced in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the death of Shozo Makino, “the father of Japanese films.” Set in the 1830s near the end of the age of the samurai, Ronin Gai is populated by an ensemble of colorful characters, social outcasts who patronize a restaurant and brothel on the outskirts of Edo. Among them are prostitutes and masterless samurai reduced to drunkenness and debauchery. The disgraced and disillusioned former warriors get a chance at redemption when renegade samurai invade the area to murder the prostitutes.Read More »

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About Tadashi Yoshimura’s maternity clinic where he practice “natural births” deep in the forest of Okazaki (Japan).

The Japan Times wrote:
The pain of childbirth, Genesis says, is God’s punishment for the original sin of womankind — if only Eve hadn’t given Adam that apple! But in Japan, traditionalists contend, it’s to be embraced, not lamented, since the deeper the agony, the deeper the motherly love. So hold the epidurals, please, we’re Japanese.Read More »

Japan Society wrote:
The closest Japanese cinema ever came to the full-blown Broadway style musical, with singing and dancing on the streets of Tokyo, music by avant-garde composer and jazzman Toshiro Mayuzumi, lyrics by renowned poet Shuntaro Tanikawa, and direction by one of Toho’s most prominent “new wave” directors, Eizo Sugawa. Popular jazz drummer and actor Frankie Sakai stars in this comic version of the “industrial competition” genre: two tourism companies compete for foreign clients in the run up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Highlighting the coming internationalization of Japan, the film dramatizes the felt tensions between tradition and modernity, the pressures of the “economic animal” lifestyle, and the energy of high economic growth.Read More »

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In 1964, a chemical factory in Niigata Prefecture dumped mercury into the Agano River, the beginning of a manmade tragedy that would affect locals for years to come. Mercury poisoning led to high occurrences of Minamata disease, a neurological syndrome that causes severe physical and psychological ailments and death. Sato Makoto and his crew of seven spent three years in Niigata documenting the life and thoughts of locals.Read More »

Late Nikkatsu Action – One of Hasebe’s last for the studio before the Roman Porno films genre became their mainstay.

Nikkatsu Classic Library wrote:
The Akiba and Shimura crime families run the streets of “K City.” With the construction of new buildings and new factories underway, the city has sprouted into a boomtown and business is good. Two of the most infamous mobs of Tokyo take notice and want a piece of the pie. As out-of-town yakuza flood the city overnight, the crime boss of the Akiba family, Tezuka (Jo Shishido), is released from prison after a five year sentence. He does not like the “change” he sees.Read More »

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A seasoned detective is called in to rescue a politician held hostage by a lunatic. In a brief moment of uncertainty, he misses the chance for action. Leaving his job and family without explanation, he makes his way to a mountain forest, where there is a peculiar tree called charisma. Should it be destroyed or protected? People stand divided over this one tree.Read More »