Japan

Teenager Kuroe and a TV Director Satomi visit a warehouse to shoot a horror TV program. When they find a mysterious mask inside, horror becomes reality.Read More »

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Born in Tokyo in 1923, Seijun Suzuki directed 42 films for Nikkatsu, averaging on about four a year, and he claims he could edit each in about a day. Despite being lauded by the critics for his unique visual style, as far as the general public and Nikkatsu president Kyusaku Hori were concerned by the mid-60s Suzuki’s approach was beginning to spin rapidly out of control.Read More »

The one-hundred-year-old Fujiya inn stands in the quiet region of Kyoto. Mikoto is standing in front of the Kibune river at the back of the building when she is called back to work. But two minutes later, she finds herself back at the river again. The whole inn seems to be stuck in a time loop!Read More »

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Masaki Kobayashi’s six-part magnum opus, The Human Condition, based on Junpei Gomikawa’s postwar novel, bears the imprint of Kobayashi’s tutelage under legendary filmmaker Keisuke Kinoshita at Shochiku’s Ofuna studio, a critical, introspective, and deeply personal account of wartime Japan framed from the perspective of an idealistic everyman (and Kobayashi’s alterego), Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai). Opening to the ironic image of lovers Kaji and Michiko (Michiyo Aratama) meeting under an archway auspiciously called the Southern Gate of Peace in Manchuria as Imperial troops march in the street, Kobayashi presents an incisive image of 1930s Japanese society that is morally consumed—and ravaged—by increasingly extremist values of militarism, occupation, and nationalism.Read More »

A movie adaptation of Tsuka Kohei’s original stage comedy that depicts the chairman of the Dosa troupe and the members of the theater company who run off his wife with other men for the sake of love. Someday, he will be in charge of the script himself, directed by Koji Wakamatsu of “Ready to Shoot”, and photographed by Tatsuo Suzuki of “The Story of Chi, the End of the Century”.Read More »

A teacher, Sakiko Kurata, receives a phone call regarding one of her former students. Young Sueko is accused of being a prostitute and has requested Sakiko’s help. This minx seduces random strangers for sex, but does not ask for payment. Sakiko has moved to another town and barely remembers Sueko, but there’s something about her that awakens painful memories of her own secretive past. What is that strange paint thinner smell on Sueko? Who is the man in the nylon ski mask that violently assaulted Sakiko many years ago? In her search for answers, Sakiko discovers that her past may have inadvertently destroyed another family’s future.Read More »

Akemi Yoshikawa discovers that her whole office is stuck in a time loop, repeating the same stressful work week over and over. Together with her colleagues she has to find out how to break the loop.Read More »

Fascinated with women from an early age, Yonosuke (Ichikawa Raizo) had his first sexual encounter at the age of seven. From that day on, he recklessly and forwardly pursues women, feeding his fascination and experience. As Yonosuke’s salacious behavior brings much cause for shame to the family, his father eventually breaks relations with him. Expelled from the family, 19-year-old Yonosuke embarks on a pilgrimage of lust, traveling far and wide to acquaint himself with women of all walks.Read More »

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A story of Japanese writer Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a man about sixty with a huge reputation of seducer who falls madly in love for a young geisha named Oyuki. Meticulous and smartly dressed, Nagai patiently wrote in his diary his thoughts during many years. A melancholy reflection on the passage of time and a brilliant interpretive exercise.Read More »