Japan

Quote:
Sado is a third base man in a high school baseball team. He has a friend, Shinbunbu, who is an editor for the school newspaper. As a plan to make money, the two one day decide to become pimp and prostitute. However, after killing a gangster in a conflict, Sado gets caught and ends up in juvenile delinquent hell.

The movie was targeted for a high school audience with what would have been an outrageous adventure for a high school student for that time in Japan. Such occurrence is no longer novel in Japan today where high school girls become their own pimps, but back in 1978 the theme of the movie was quite shocking and sensational.Read More »

Quote:
A married man has been driven to the edge by a boring job, a talkative wife, unbearable children and their cramped living quarters. He gets some chloroform and a gas mask, gains illegal entry into the quarters of an attractive waitress he likes, puts on his gas mask, sprays chloroform around her room as she sleeps, and when she is thoroughly knocked out, he has sex with her. Although he carries out these nightly activities with other women as well, he keeps on coming back to the waitress, and in order to offer something in return, he sometimes washes her clothes or fixes her food before she wakes up.Read More »

Synopsis:
A beautiful young ballet dancer is accepted into a prestigious and exclusive dance academy. Overjoyed at the opportunity to further her career and repair her relationship with her boyfriend, she soon discovers that the academy has a much, much darker side to it–and she may not be able to escape it.
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VOL666 wrote:
WIFE TO BE SACRIFICED is another in a long line of sleazy Nikkatsu roman-porn features – and this is another of the better ones. Somewhat reminiscent of the (also excellent) 1969 film BLIND BEAST – WIFE TO BE SACRIFICED explores subjects such as sexual obsession and domination in much the same, albeit much sleazier fashion…

The story revolves around a woman whose husband had disappeared after being arrested for molesting a child. The husband comes back after three years and decides he’s not through with his wife yet. He kidnaps her and puts her through the requisite humiliation and S&M games, including some inventive rope torture, forced pube-shaving, candlestick rape, whipping, toilet humiliation, etc…The wife tries to escape several times but is never successful, and is even raped by two passers-by during one failed escape attempt. Out on an excursion around his property, the husband finds a couple who have attempted suicide, and after raping the female, kidnaps them as well and puts them through some strong “paces” as well – including a forced enema for the young lady. Eventually the psycho’s wife finds that she’s begun to enjoy the twisted “games” as her will has now been broken and re-molded by her whackadoo husband…
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Dan Harper wrote:
Any serious film director is concerned not only with meticulous representation but also with a kind of drama which must, by its nature, question the ethical rightness of things as they are…. Usually, a director is drawn to situations with maximum dramatic potential. Invariably that potential is provided by strife and friction between the individual and his environment. In the Japanese woman, Japanese directors have discovered the perfect protagonist. This does not mean that Japanese directors are feminists – even Kenji Mizoguchi, though he is often so described. It means rather that these directors in seeking objectivity as well as dramatic revelation have, naturally, shown Japanese women as they are.Read More »

Plot / Synopsis
Based on actual events that served as the inspiration for the 1963 film of the same name, Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins follows a group of noble samurai as they seek to slay a tyrannical, politically connected lord before he seizes control of the entire country. Japan, 1844: as the era of the samurai winds to a close, a sadistic young lord uses his powerful political ties to commit heinous atrocities against the common people. Recognizing the dangers to both his country and its citizens should the lord manage to gain any more power, a concerned government official secretly recruits 13 of the most skilled swordsmen he can find to defeat the evil lord once and for all. But reaching their target won’t be easy, because the elusive lord is constantly flanked by legions of fearless bodyguards. Realizing that the bodyguards would decimate his modest task force in a traditional battle, the assassins’ leader (Koji Yakusho) lays an ingenious trap that will give his men the upper hand, and waits patiently for their prey to take the bait. ~ Jason Buchanan, RoviRead More »

Kabei follows a normal, loving family as their innocent, bustling lives are forever transformed by the war. Veteran actress Yoshinaga Sayuri is the picture of dignity and grace as a strong and elegant woman who holds her family together in her husband’s absence, while acclaimed actor Asano Tadanobu disappears into the role of an awkward, affable writer who becomes the unlikely hero for a struggling family. Kabei is a triumph in humanistic storytelling, breaking hearts with its realistic characters, sensitive depictions, and precious moments of laughter and tears.Read More »

From the BFI website:

Television documentary featuring interviews with Japanese soldiers after the Second World War.

Quote:
“In Search of Unreturned Soldiers was about former soldiers of the Japanese army who chose not to return to Japan after the war. I found several of them who had remained in Thailand. Two years later, I invited one of them to make his first return visit to Japan and documented it in Muhomatsu Returns Home. During the filming, my subject Fujita asked me to buy him a cleaver so that he could kill his ‘vicious brother.’ I was shocked, and asked him to wait a day so that I could plan how to film the scene. By the next morning, to my relief, Fujita had calmed down and changed his mind about killing his brother. But I couldn’t have had a sharper insight into the ethical questions provoked by this kind of documentary filmmaking.” —Shôhei ImamuraRead More »

In the high-octane, unorthodox romance I Hate But Love (Nikui anchikusho), a celebrity (played by megastar Yujiro Ishihara), dissatisfied with his personal and professional lives, impulsively leaves fast-paced Tokyo to deliver a much-needed jeep to a remote village. When his controlling manager, the woman he loves (Ruriko Asaoka), follows, the two must reconcile while dodging reporters.Read More »